Rolling In The Deep

Hey, can you give Shady a comb when I'm out? I think she struggles now she is getting on a bit.

The Good Lady looked down at Shady our ancient old cat sympathetically as she stood at the door.

She was looking a bit unkempt. Tufts of old fur were poking up through her normally glossy black coat. She looked a bit like the inside of a hoover bag.
_{^{The cat that is, not the Good Lady}}

Yeah, don't worry lass. I will comb the shit out of the little fucker!

I exclaimed brightly making big rowing combing motions as if bailing out a sinking boat.

Aw. Be gentle. She's probably just moulting her winter coat and can't wash herself as well as she used to. She's eighteen after all!

The Good Lady blew our old and manky stained cat a kiss and headed out of the door.

I sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed the cat comb.

Shady followed me in and sat, her head cocked to the side as if she was lining up a particularly difficult snooker shot.

She was usually a pretty little cat. All big eyes and sleek black coat but somehow we had missed her coat getting a little tatty and tufty weird. No longer did she spend hours licking her arse and back bits as she did in her heady days of youth.

Don't you worry little miss. I will have you back to your old self in no time.

I closed the door so she couldn't escape. She wasn't the fondest of a combing. In fact, she could get a bit fighty and bitey.

With that in mind, I grabbed an oven glove and stuffed my hand in it like a baseball-playing teenager on a first date.

There, I was ready.

Right Shady, come here.

I started combing my tufty little treasure.

She arched her back and purred, stretching into it.

There there, you like a good comb eh. Get all that nasty fur out.

There was more purring and more combing. Several times I removed great fistfuls of fur from the comb and clapped myself on the back for what an amazing job I was doing.

WEOOOOWRL?!

Shady yowled and leapt away from me, the comb having pulled at a matted bit of fur that did not seem to want to budge.

Hey girl. Chill. It's all good.

I approached her gently with the comb and tried for another stroke.

Hiiiiiiiiccchhhhhhhh!!

She snarled as the comb snagged once again on a matted bit of fur and snapped a paw full of claws in my direction but luckily they batted harmlessly off the thick oven glove.

And so it begins.

We had danced this dance before. Only one of us was leaving this room uncombed and it sure as hell wasn't going to be the BoomDawg.

The battle was on.

I chased her around our kitchen launching strike after strike with the comb. Shady whirled and hissed and lashed out with her razor-sharp claws. The kitchen was awash with yelps and screams and hissing.

And that was just me.

Time passed in a blur of strike and counter strike. The air was thick with cat hair and menace. Over and over I would lash at her with the comb and manage to get a tuggy bit of fur out only for another to magically come to the surface.

After one particularly fierce exchange, there was a lull in the battle and I stopped to heave in great gulps of air. Sweat poured down my brow and my once beautiful oven glove was a shredded shell of its former self. Blood streaked in jagged lines from a million scratches down my forearm.

I glared at the Shady cat.

Is that all you've got?

I took one last deep breath and raised the comb. No more messing about. It was time to end this.

Shady sensed a change in the air. Her eyes narrowed and she hissed like an old man pulling his catheter out.

This is it, baby girl, no more messing about.

I raised the comb and stopped.

What was this??

Shady's eyes flashed malevolently as if she were being possessed by devils and her body started to shake and judder.

Fuck, what if she was turning into a mutant supervillain?

But no. She contorted and with a foul-smelling plop laid a gigantic fear shit on the floor.

It was huge, a steaming long thick log of a jobby.

Hot shitting cats?! My mouth dropped open in horror, what kind of hell-tactics were these? I raised my hands and started backing away but it wasn't over. Oh no.

My cat, now surely possessed by something from the very depths made a mrowling growling noise and proceeded to roll on top of her giant fear shit over and over whilst still maintaining a piercing eye contact with me.

Oh my god, Shady?! Stop! You are caking yourself in shit! Please... STOP!

The front door of the house opened and the Good Lady's voice rang out.

Helllooo!! Did you manage to get Shady all sorted?

Her voice had that happy chirp to it that people's voices have when they come home and their cat isn't all insanely angry and caked in shit.

Shady stopped rolling in shit and let out a weird contented purr.

I looked up to the heavens before answering...

Not quite!