Hilary Fannin: The world is a very different place when you can’t count

‘Could I have some worm pills?” I asked the veterinary assistant.

Momentarily, she desisted from creating a pyramidical display of pussycat desire on the counter top with three plastic tubs of dried catnip (“for maximum excitement,” the label said).

She looked up at me with barely disguised scepticism and uttered a small yap of distaste.

"For the cat," I qualified. "Worm pills for the cat."

"What weight?"

“Bloody hell, I’m not sure, but distressingly more than it was before Christmas, I imagine. I try, God knows, I try. It’s probably the wine. Empty calories, apparently, although they slip down pretty easily.”

“The cat,” she said. “What weight is the cat?”

“Five pounds.”

This was a random and utterly inaccurate guess. I hate number questions. You know the kind of thing: “How many people were at the party?” “Oh, I dunno, 15? One hundred and fifteen? Eleven? Twenty-eight? I’m not terribly sure.”

It’s worse when you ask someone for directions. “Keep going for three-quarters of a mile, take the third right and, after about five yards, swing a left. It’s the second turning after the fourth set of traffic lights.”

What?

A five-pound count

The world is a very different place when one has essentially failed to grasp counting. Anyway, five pounds sounded reasonable. You can have a five-pound cat, right?

And five pounds has a familiar ring to it. I always want to lose five pounds, no matter what. “Lose five pounds,” I say to myself when I wake up in the dead of night, wondering how my children will survive in an overpopulated world without ice caps or the necessity for a postal service. As it five pounds less of me is going to save the sea lions or cheer up an Inuit.

“It’s a 2.2kg cat?” she asked, her professional demeanour curling at the edges.

“Yes,” I lied.

This was a smart young woman. Her confidence was admirable, unsettling. I suspect her skills were being underutilised, hence the architectural catnip installation. She probably got 5,000 points in her Leaving Certificate so that she could pursue her lifelong dream of studying equine science, only to end up stuck behind a counter in a dull suburb, dealing with random and perfidious cat-wormers.

There was a brochure on the counter advertising luxury-quilted doggy-shaped ski parkas, presumably for dribbling pugs that don’t fancy schlepping their all-too-visible asses around in the inclement weather we’ve been having. My interest was piqued. Twenty-five quid could buy you a pink polka-dot PVC waterproof raincoat to belt on to your Tibetan spaniel, just in case, you know, after however many centuries of loafing around the Himalayas, eating tofu rolls and barking at the I Ching, it’s suddenly no longer bleedin’ waterproof.

Weighing the situation

“You said 2.2kg?” she asked again.

How do I know? I’ve no idea what weight the cat is. She’s never divulged.

“Look,” I said, “she’s eating a lot and not getting any bigger.” (I should be so lucky.)

I attempted to elucidate. “She opened the fridge the other morning and had a hissy fit when there wasn’t any cooked ham in there. She’s even started eating cat food from German supermarkets now, and she used to hate the hog and sauerkraut variety. I’m worried that she has worms. She’s skittish. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she dive-bombs me from the top of the wardrobe. No wonder I keep waking up worried about climate change and my midriff.”

“Worm pills can only be bought on a prescription,” the assistant replied. “Bring the cat in and we’ll weigh her, then you can have the medication.”

“She doesn’t like driving,” I explained. “Her paws can’t reach the clutch.”

I tried to tell the terrifyingly efficient cat expert that the one and only time I had brought the cat to a vet she had managed to squeeze herself through a tiny, tiny aperture in an antiquated cat box, and I’d caught her in mid-flight as she was about to hurl herself on to a wet road off the Artane roundabout, without even her bus fare home.

However, I told the assistant, whose fingers were itching to get back to her orchestration of the Cataria citriodora and the Nepeta camphorata, that the cat does sometimes like to sit in reusable shopping bags and pretend she's invisible. I could try picking up one of the bags, with her in it, put it on my new Weight Watchers weighing scales, then give you a ring. Maybe? Do you think?

“Worm pills are prescription-only.”

Her barked words rang in my ears as I exited the premises. I’ll just have to buy a polka-dot cat box.