I didn’t have the best evening last night.

I spent it, along with a very worried nine year-old (last time I’m doing that) at the vet’s office to get a burst abscess on an eleven year old cat’s anal gland sorted out. $300, a handful of prescriptions, and a yet-to-happen follow-up this weekend, I’m kinda wrecked.

Montana the cat smelled a little funny on Monday, so my wife and daughter gave him a bath. In washing him, they noticed what looked like testicles in the usual place, which was funny, because he hasn’t had those for over a decade. A little research, and some poking and prodding at sore spots later, they figured it was probably an infected anal gland, and made a vet appointment. The vet, of course, couldn’t see him until Wednesday evening.

He basically chilled out around the house for the next two days, being a bit more sendentary than his usual rug-like self, but was generally okay. I took him to the vet last night, as the wife and older daughter had dance classes. In the meantime, the abscess back there burst, getting pus and other such pleasant biological matter everywhere, and leaving a big-ass hole* next to his usual regular-sized asshole. He felt better afterwards, but it looked like hell.

It actually freaked the vet out looking at it. Anyway, they did some feline manscaping back there, flushed the whole business out, and gave him a topical antiseptic, and sent him home with some pills and more cream, and directions to keep him away from clay litter and keep him, or anyone else, from licking at things back there.

So, he’s living in the bathroom with some shredded paper litter, and talking to the rest of the feline population through the door in yelps and taps like some prison movie. Otherwise, he’s totally chill.

I wish I was. Vet’s offices are close enough to hospitals that it throws me right off. Not if *I’m* ill, but if somebody I care about is the center of attention there, I’m a wreck.

Anyway, that problem is addressed. Didn’t help the overflowed toilet upstairs that had my ceiling temporarily raining I found shortly after I came home. That’s the one that totally sent me over the edge. Dammit.

At least a calmed down a little bit with the usual gang of hooligans watching the monthly online Mikey Mason show.