We think Cookie is our form of karmic payback from some transgression in a past life. He's been really really REALLY expensive, ever since we got him "for free" at the Animal Shelter. We learned that "Kuki" is a bad word in Hungarian. We learned it the hard way, when people asked us what the names of our cats were. When we got to "Cookie, we got one of two reactions. A snicker and a downcast look, or a kind of "I feel sorry for you, because you're oblivious to what's going on" look. We asked a friend what Kuki meant, and were told delicately that it was "slang". Yep. Copy that. Slang for what? A man's "private parts". Google translate says ambiguously:
If I didn't already know which "peter" they were talking about, I'd be confused....
BUT- back to my main point, which is what a trial Cookie has been since we got him. When we took him home from the shelter he would only eat one kind of special cat food. We thought we'd wait him out. Nope. He got thinner and thinner and thinner and we gave in and fed him the special kitten food. The vet said we should feed him regular cat food. Why, we bothered, I can't figure out. Eventually we found one that he would eat. Evo 95% chicken and turkey cat food. And so, we bought it by the case either from Amazon or from the vet. He's not a cheap date.
Here's an early picture of Cookie. He was an indoor cat, but got to go out on the back porch. This picture was taken after he fell from the back porch, chasing a bird, or a bug or just stupidly falling off the railing that he liked to walk on. No one knows for sure. We just found him on the ground outside, with a badly broken leg. We put him back together, and he spent many many weeks in this cage, with this external frame bolted to his leg to let the pieces of the bone grow back together. Then he spent many weeks after the external brace was removed back in the cage to make sure he didn't jump on this newly healed leg. Cost? I A LOT. We put it on the credit card. We are stupid people.
When we were moving to Hungary we thought about leaving the cats with someone. This was a good thought, but really, who wants three cats? Lots of people like the other two cats. No one wants Cookie. He's weird, as witnessed in the "Murdered in our Beds" entry on the blog. He's a nutcase. He's "Francis" from Stripes. Added to his obvious mental health issues, he only eats the before-mentioned special food. We tried LOTS of Hungarian cat food. Lots. No dice. He'll happily eat tuna. I don't want to buy tuna for my cats. I tried chicken hearts and gizzards, which are cheap here. He's not interested in chicken parts. Just chicken. I'm not interested in cooking chicken for a cat. I'm not interested in the cat anymore, truth be told. But, I am a soft hearted person, and so I do not listen to my brother, who softly chants into the telephone "put the cat outside...... put the cat outside...."
Recently, some friends came to visit and we asked them to bring 4 cases of the special cat food ordered from Amazon. We said we'd pay for the "extra bag fee" because $50 is less than what we usually pay to ship the stuff. So, they schlepped over 4 cases of the cans, nervous that they'd be pulled out by customs for importing catfood into Hungary, or something like that. (not beyond possible, based on my littering incident). And now, you know what??? After all this-- ordering, shipping, packing and lugging it, he's not interested. Not interested at all. Seriously. Won't eat it.... After a whole year of imposing on relatives, waiting for the boxes to clear customs and be delivered and feeding him tuna while we waited for the boxes to arrive, he likes dry food. Really.... Dry food. Bought right here in town.
Someone, somewhere is having a good laugh.
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