Good-Bye to Tom the Bomb

Our cat Tom recently lost a lot of weight. He usually loses weight in the summer but not to this extent.

To make a long story short, he needed to be laid away.

Wednesday night was our last night with Tom.

We adopted Tom about ten years ago when we lived in San Jose. I took my daughter, my only child at the time, to the shelter.

I tried to steer her towards an adult cat, but she fell in love with a little black kitten.

We took him home and he hid from us at first. After a few days, he decided to come out.

When we left San Jose, he came with us to our new town. Moving wasn't his favorite thing. He did lots of feline complaining in the new place.

Tom eventually settled in and things went back to normal. We had moved to a house with a yard that was in a semi-rural area. Now Tom could go outdoors.

After a while Tom began leaving poop spots everywhere he laid. I banished him from my bedroom after I had to wash my quilt for the third time in a week.

I banished him from the couches too. He wasn't a happy camper. (BTW, this means they need their anal gland drained. I didn't know that at the time.)

He also had litterbox issues. When he pooped, the whole house reeked. We could scoop it immediately and still the scent lingered. One of his favorite things to do, or at least it seemed that way, was to poop in it while someone was taking a bath. The lovely aroma of Tom wafted through the bathroom to curl the nose hairs of the hapless bather. That's how he got his nickname.

Then we started getting dogs. Tom HATED dogs. The dogs were never mean to him. They tried to play with him, but he wasn't having it.

Tom wasn't super affectionate. He would let us pet him for about two minutes and then he bit our hands.

Eventually, between his stinky butt, his hatred for the dogs and his insistence on sneaking in my room, he ended up living on the porch. He had his own bed and no dogs were raiding his food dishes. Best of all, I didn't have to smell his butt!

But then he would scream at night as loud as he could, usually around two a.m. I threw more than one pitcher of water on Tom the Bomb due to my irritation at being awakened. He soon got wise to that. He would scream at the door and run the minute I got to it.

One morning at five a.m., I went after him with a hose. I was five months pregnant and in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear chasing him. Suddenly I noticed a man walking his dog staring at me. Hello there, neighbor. Don't mind the crazy, fat lady.

Tom got to come in the house occasionally. But he soon realized that between SJ and the dogs, the porch was a better gig. It was all his.

The sick Tom of recent days was a completely different cat. He wanted to be petted and loved. He even purred a little bit.

I talked to the vet yesterday regarding some tests and I realized it was time.

Even though Tom wasn't eating much, I purchased him some tuna. He made a valiant effort to eat it. We petted him and told him good-bye. The two adult dogs had to stay the night outside. Tom got the run of the house just the way he liked it. He snuck up on the couch while everybody was sleeping.

I realized in the last few days, he was not just the surly cat who lived on the porch. He represented the beginning of our marriage, one of the first animals we owned together. He was the first animal my daughter picked out for herself. He's been with us through two pregnancies, one miscarriage and four dogs, ten if you count the puppies.

I've probably scooped a thousand of his cat poops.

I brushed him for a while this morning and took his picture. He took his last ride to the vet in that bright green pet carrier he hated.

I handed him over but I couldn't say good-bye. I hope he knew that we were saying good-bye last night.