This is the story of
the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head stuck in the garbage
disposal. I knew at the time that the experience would be funny if the
cat survived, so let me tell you right up front that he's fine. Getting
him out wasn't easy, though, and the process included numerous home
remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary
clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen
minutes of fame.
First, some background. My husband, Rich, and I had just returned from
a five-day spring-break vacation in the Cayman Islands, where I had
been sick as a dog the whole time, trying to convince myself that if I
had to feel lousy, it was better to do it in paradise. We had arrived
home at 9 p.m., a day and a half later than we had planned because of
airline problems. I still had illness-related vertigo and because of
the flight delays had not been able to prepare the class I was supposed
to teach at 8:40 the next morning. I sat down at my desk to think about
William Carlos Williams, and around ten o'clock I heard Rich hollering
something indecipherable from the kitchen. As I raced out to see what
was wrong, I saw Rich frantically rooting around under the kitchen
sink, and Rudy -- or, rather, Rudy's
headless body --
scrambling around in the sink, his claws clicking in panic on the
metal. Rich had just ground up the skin of some smoked salmon in the
garbage disposal, and when he left the room, Rudy (whom we always did
call a pinhead) had gone in after it.
It
is very disturbing to see the headless body of your cat in the sink.
This is an animal that I have slept with nightly for ten years, who
burrows under the covers and purrs against my side, and who now looked
like a desperate, fur-covered turkey carcass, set to defrost in the
sink while it's still alive and kicking. It was also disturbing to see
Rich, Mr. Calm-in-an-Emergency, at his wits end, trying to soothe Rudy,
trying to undo the garbage disposal, failing at both, and basically
freaking out. Adding to the chaos was Rudy's twin brother Lowell, also
upset, racing around in circles, jumping onto the kitchen counter and
alternately licking Rudy's butt for comfort and biting it out of fear.
Clearly, I had to do something.
First we
tried to ease Rudy out of the disposal by lubricating his head and
neck. We tried Johnson's baby shampoo (kept on hand for my nieces'
visits) and butter-flavored Crisco: both failed, and a now-greasy Rudy
kept struggling. Rich then decided to take apart the garbage disposal,
which was a good idea, but he couldn't do it. Turns out, the thing is
constructed like a metal onion: you peel off one layer and another one
appears, with Rudy's head still buried deep inside, stuck in a hard
plastic collar. My job during this process was to sit on the kitchen
counter petting Rudy, trying to calm him, with the room spinning
(vertigo), Lowell howling (he's part Siamese), and Rich clattering
around with tools.
When
all
our efforts failed, we sought professional help. I called our regular
plumber, who actually called me back quickly, even at 11 o'clock at
night (thanks, Dave). He talked Rich through further layers of disposal
dismantling, but still we couldn't reach Rudy. I called the 1-800
number for Insinkerator (no response), a pest removal service that
advertises 24-hour service (no response), an all-night emergency
veterinary clinic (who had no experience in this matter, and so, no
advice), and finally, in desperation, 911. I could see that Rudy's
normally pink paw pads were turning blue. The fire department, I
figured, gets cats out of trees; maybe they could get one out of a
garbage disposal.
The
dispatcher had other ideas and offered to send over two policemen. This
suggestion gave me pause. I'm from the sixties, and even if I am
currently a fine upstanding citizen, I had never considered calling the
cops and asking them to come to my house, on purpose. I resisted the
suggestion, but the dispatcher was adamant: "They'll help you out," he
said.
The cops
arrived close to midnight and turned out to be quite nice. More
importantly, they were also able to think rationally, which we were
not. They were, of course, quite astonished by the situation: "I've
never seen anything like this," Officer Mike kept saying. (The unusual
circumstances helped us get quickly on a first-name basis with our
cops.) Officer Tom, who expressed immediate sympathy for our plight --
"I've had cats all my life," he said, comfortingly -- also had an idea.
Evidently we needed a certain tool, a
tiny, circular rotating saw, that could cut through the heavy plastic
flange encircling Rudy's neck without hurting Rudy, and Officer Tom
happened to own one. "I live just five minutes from here," he said;
"I'll go get it." He soon returned, and the three of them --
Rich and the two policemen -- got under the sink together to
cut through the garbage disposal. I sat on the counter, holding Rudy
and trying not to succumb to the surreal-ness of the scene, with the
weird middle-of-the-night lighting, the room's occasional spinning,
Lowell's spooky sound effects, an apparently headless cat in my sink
and six disembodied legs poking out from under it. One good thing came
of this: the guys did manage to get the bottom off of the disposal, so
we could now see Rudy's face and knew he could breathe. But they
couldn't cut the flange without risking the cat. Stumped.
Officer
Tom had another idea. "You know," he said, "I think the reason we can't
get him out is the angle of his head and body. If we could just get the
sink out and lay it on its side, Ill bet we could slip him out." That
sounded like a good idea at this point. ANYTHING would have sounded
like a good idea, and as it turned out, Officer Mike runs a plumbing
business on weekends; he knew how to take out the sink! Again they went
to work, the three pairs of legs sticking out from under the sink
surrounded by an ever-increasing pile of tools and sink parts. They cut
the electrical supply, capped off the plumbing lines, unfastened the
metal clamps, unscrewed all the pipes, and about an hour later, voila!
the sink was lifted gently out of the countertop, with one guy holding
the garbage disposal (which contained Rudy's head) up close to the sink
(which contained Rudy's body). We laid the sink on its side, but even
at this more favorable removal angle, Rudy stayed stuck.
Officer
Tom's radio beeped, calling him away on some kind of real police
business. As he was leaving, though, he had another good idea: "You
know," he said, "I don't think we can get him out while he's struggling
so much. We need to get the cat sedated. If he were limp, we could
slide him out." And off he went, regretfully, a cat lover still worried
about Rudy. The remaining three of us decided that getting Rudy sedated
was a good idea, but Rich and I were new to the area. We knew that the
overnight emergency veterinary clinic was only a few minutes away, but
we didn't know exactly how to get there. "I know where it is!" declared
Officer Mike. "Follow me!"
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So Mike got into his
patrol car, Rich got
into the driver's seat of our car, and I got into the back, carrying
the kitchen sink, what was left of the garbage disposal, and Rudy. It
was now about 2:00 a.m. We followed Officer Mike for a few blocks when
I decided to put my hand into the garbage disposal to pet Rudy's face,
hoping I could comfort him. Instead, my sweet, gentle bedfellow chomped
down on my finger hard, really hard, and wouldn't let go. My scream
reflex kicked into gear, and I couldn't stop the noise. Rich slammed on
the brakes, hollering "What? What happened? Should I stop?", checking
us out in the rearview mirror. "No," I managed to get out between
screams, "just keep driving. Rudy's biting me, but we've got to get to
the vet. Just go!" Rich turned his attention back to the road, where
Officer Mike took a turn we hadn't expected, and we followed. After a
few minutes Rudy let go, and as I stopped screaming, I looked up to
discover that we were wandering aimlessly through an industrial park,
in and out of empty parking lots, past little streets that didn't look
at all familiar.
"Where's he taking us?" I asked. "We should have been
there ten minutes ago!" Rich was as mystified as I was, but all we knew
to do was follow the police car until, finally, he pulled into a church
parking lot and we pulled up next to him. As Rich rolled down the
window to ask, "Mike, where are we going?", the cop, who was not Mike,
rolled down his window and asked, "Why are you following me?" Once Rich
and I recovered from our shock at having tailed the wrong cop car and
the policeman from his pique at being stalked, he led us quickly to the
emergency vet, where Mike greeted us by holding open the door,
exclaiming "Where were you guys???"
It
was
lucky that Mike got to the vet's ahead of us, because we hadn't thought
to call and warn them about what was coming. (Clearly, by this time we
weren't really thinking at all.) We brought in the kitchen sink
containing Rudy and the garbage disposal containing his head, and the
clinic staff was ready. They took his temperature (which was down 10
degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet
declared: "This cat is in serious shock. We've got to sedate him and
get him out of there immediately." When I asked if it was OK to sedate
a cat in shock, the vet said grimly, "We don't have a choice." With
that, he injected the cat; Rudy went limp; and the vet squeezed about
half a tube of K-Y jelly onto the cat's neck and pulled him free. Then
the whole team jumped into "code blue" mode. (I know this from watching
a lot of ER.) They laid Rudy on a cart, where one person hooked up IV
fluids, another put little socks on his paws ("You'd be amazed how much
heat they lose through their pads," she said), one covered him with hot
water bottles and a blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up
Rudy's now very gunky head.
The fur on his head dried in stiff little
spikes, making him look rather pathetically punk as he lay there, limp
and motionless. At this point they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in
the waiting room while they tried to bring Rudy back to life. I told
Mike he didn't have to stay, but he just stood there, shaking his head.
"I've never seen anything like this," he said again. At about 3 a.m,
the vet came in to tell us that the prognosis was good for a full
recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight to re-hydrate him and give
him something for the brain swelling they assumed he had, but if all
went well, we could take him home the following night. Just in time to
hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished with his real
police work and concerned about Rudy. I figured that once this ordeal
was over and Rudy was home safely, I would have to re-think my position
on the police.
Rich
and I
got back home about 3:30. We hadn't unpacked from our trip, I was still
intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn't prepared my 8:40 class. "I
need a vacation," I said, and while I called the office to leave a
message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis.
I
slept
late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy's condition
until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I was working
on the suitcases when the phone rang. "Hi, this is Steve Huskey from
the Norristown Times-Herald,"
a voice told me.
"Listen, I was just going through the police blotter from last night.
Mostly it's the usual stuff breaking and entering, petty theft but
there's this one item. Um, do you have a cat?" So I told Steve the
whole story, which interested him. A couple hours later he called back
to say that his editor was interested, too; did I have a picture of
Rudy? The next day Rudy was front-page news, under the ridiculous
headline "Catch of the Day Lands Cat in Hot Water."
There
were
some noteworthy repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr. Huskey had
somehow inferred that I called 911 because I thought Rich, my husband,
was going into shock, although how he concluded this from my comment
that "his pads were turning blue," I don't quite understand. So the
first thing I had to do was call Rich at work Rich, who had worked
tirelessly to free Rudy -- and swear that I had been
misquoted. When I arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been
calling my secretary all morning to inquire about Rudy's health. When I
called our regular vet (whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up
appointment for Rudy, the receptionist asked, "Is this the famous
Rudy's mother?" When I brought my car in for routine maintenance a few
days later, Dave, my mechanic, said, "We read about your cat. Is he
OK?" When I called a tree surgeon about my dying red oak, he asked if I
knew the person on that street whose cat had been in the garbage
disposal. And when I went to get my hair cut, the shampoo person told
me the funny story her grandma had read in the paper, about a cat who
got stuck in the garbage disposal. Even today, over a year later,
people ask about Rudy, whom a 9-year-old neighbor had always called
"the Adventure Cat" because he used to climb on the roof of her house
and peer in the second-story window at her.
I don't
know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this
"adventure" cost me $1100 in emergency vet bills, follow-up vet care,
new sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage
disposal, one with a cover. The vet can no longer say he's seen
everything but the kitchen sink. I wanted to thank Officers Tom and
Mike by giving them gift certificates to the local hardware store, but
was told that they couldn't accept gifts, that I would put them in a
bad position if I tried. So I wrote a letter to the Police Chief
praising their good deeds and sent individual thank-you notes to Tom
and Mike, complete with pictures of Rudy, so they could see what he
looks like with his head on. And Rudy, whom we originally got for free
(or so we thought), still sleeps with me under the covers on cold
nights and unaccountably, he still sometimes prowls the sink, hoping
for fish.
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