Miss Agatha returned from the vet on Thursday, thoroughly spayed and sporting a plasticky, blue, “Elizabethan” (the Earl of Essex is spinning in his grave) collar intended to prevent her worrying at her stitches.
This offends her (she has worked herself out of it once and gotten a forepaw through it two or three times), but worse, it has terrified the hitherto fearless Torvald Magnussen, who jumps back from her approach, hisses, and flees the paw-bats with which she afflicts his flanks when allowed out of purdah for brief exercise airings. (Discharge instructions: “Limit Agatha’s activities for seven days.” Yeah, right. This is a cat who, placed in an extruded room devoid of furniture, would leap in the air and pirouette just for the hell of it.)
It was the Cute Engineer who observed that Torvald — a natural, haughty aristocrat of grand demeanor — might be alarmed by the whole Blue Collar business because it might signify that Agatha was a Trade Unionist or other sort of populist agitator.
“What if she’s a Socialist?” he suggested.
Me, I honestly don’t think that Agatha gives a rat for the Revolution, or anything except being allowed to lick her ass without the interference of a glorified hairdresser’s drape. And a few days down the pike, Torvald will be telling her: “Ye Gods, I’m glad you’re back! There was a monster in the house while you were gone! It looked like a cat except it had this big unnatural blue THING around its neck…” I’m sure she’ll humor him.
Agatha’s Elizabethan is really quite lovely, especially compared to the dreaded plastic cone of yore which must have originated in the Tower of London.
It’s actually a family heirloom. Apricat of glorious memory wore it when he had a skin rash that he kept licking and inflaming, and I washed it, kept it and took it to the vet for Agatha’s use when she came out of surgery. Waste not, want not.
We have had some similar Adventures in Unflattering Headgear chez Rochester, though the hostility always came from Big Dumb Daria, who is rarely able to recognize anyone two times running, regardless of what they may be wearing.
Is it easier for her to recognize you if you’re walking slowly?
Well, it’s fabulous and all the more so being Apricat’s of Glorious Memory.
Several people have commented that Torvald is channeling Apricat. If so, there have been some karmic updates.
Agatha does have a royal look with her grande dame collar. And Thorvald just needed to be put in his place, for once.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him appear scared by anything. Who knew… like the person C. S. Lewis mentioned somewhere in his belles-lettres, who was terrified in childhood by the India paper edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.