Old Boy

"I'm 86, you know!"

My sixteen and a half year old cat Harley-Boy and I have been together longer than me and Meeester. I love that wee black and white guy, but lately he has been letting us know that he’s not got long left.

Here’s how:

1. By pissing in an open suitcase under our bed this morning like a small racehorse despite many good years of fertilising the neighbours' gardens with the bounty of his bladder and bowels.

2.By smelling of Death.

3. By wanting to be on us all the time which is unpleasant to anyone with a fully functioning sense of smell.

4. By being really bloody annoying so that when he finally goes we’ll say phrases like “It’s a blessing” or “Thank God for a merciful release”. All old people do this, they become intolerable to be around, so that it’s easier for you to say goodbye.

5.By being constantly hungry because the receptor that tells his brain his tummy is full has short circuited. Like Henry the Eighth, Mr Creosote and George IV, he’s going to eat himself to death.

6. By refusing to spend any of his pension on new clothes because there’s no point, he’ll be dead soon. Hang on, I’m maybe confusing him with my late Gran.

7. By having short bursts of frantic activity like a kitten just to fox us and give us false hope. One minute you’re lamenting how slow and lame he’s become, the next you’re watching him sprint the length of the house to the sound of a tin being opened like a stinky Jesse Owens.

8. By shouting at us all the time. He’s not quite clenching his fist in a defiant gesture, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw him doing it. He’s that angry.

9.By dribbling on everything like a furry John Merrick.

10. By shouting out everyone else's answers during Trivial Pursuit. Sorry, no. That was my Granda.

11. By constantly laying down the law to his younger feline friends. I swear I heard him miaow something along the lines of“ In my day it was all tins. Sachets? Sachets??We didn’t even KNOW what a sachet was! A sachet was something you did along a windowsill!”

12. By being blind but noticing every move you make, specially with those magical tin opening opposable thumbs and index fingers. It's like Grandmothers who claim to be deaf but can clearly hear you badmouth them behind their backs.

Harley-Boy, the cat of the Flying Martinis, is knock knock knocking on heaven’s door but I’m concerned, do they have a cat flap?

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