catASTROPHE

When Mark acquired the role of living-in-the-same-house-as-my-cat, he requested that we take certain measures to minimize the spread of disease and cat hair. One of those measures was to bathe the cat regularly. Since I had this cat since before she could legally be adopted (i.e. I was her foster mother. [Ok, technically my friend Kelli and I were her foster mothers. In different apartments. It's complicated.]), and had bathed her as a kitten, I figured this was doable.
And usually it is, although Ruby the Cat does NOT like it.
I take the precaution of trimming her claws before bath time because...you know...claws.

The interpretation of "bathe regularly" varies, but before we went on our Christmas vacation, we decided to get her all Clean so that, theoretically, we would come home to less cat-hair infiltration.

So Mark cuffed her (as in held her by the cuff of her neck. It reduces wriggling) while I took nail/claw trimmers to her paws. It was going pretty well until I reached the last foot. She started resisting, and kicked out right when I was squeezing the nail trimmer handles.
I had cut the quick.
And her nail started bleeding.
And wouldn't stop.
It didn't bleed too much during her bath, but afterward it starting going everywhere.
I had put on an old rain jacket of Mark's to do the bath (hey, I didn't want blood on my clothes. Let's put it on his instead. [just kidding. i had his permission]), and as she struggled and kicked out I got streaks of blood all over.
We couldn't let her go until the bleeding slowed, otherwise we risked damage to cat and furniture. I tried holding pressure. I tried liquid bandaid. I tried a wound sealing spray thing. Ruby was super NOT HAPPY.
Plus, by this time she had been captive for at least an hour.
So as I'm trying out some super-duper glue on the nail, with Mark holding her cuff, she decided she couldn't wait any longer and dropped a turd.
It rolled behind Mark's shoe. Mark hadn't yet picked up on what was happening, so he started shifting position and I warn him DO NOT MOVE. There is POOP.
And then I notice that she still has some more at the edge of her rectum.
We still can't let her go, because she is still bleeding.
I look at Mark (who is also SUPER NOT HAPPY) and ask if we are saving the blood-streaked rain jacket.
No, we are not.
So I pull up a seat underneath her and let the remaining turds fall in my lap (which is covered by the rain jacket, cuz Mark is taller than me).
FINALLY, the bleeding trickled to a good-enough pace, and we let her go.
She went into a corner.
I carefully removed the jacket.
Mark hit the shower.
I cleaned up blood and poop. Which is a normal part of my job, but it's different when it's in your own home.
When we were all through with the whole episode, I was not happy. Mark was not happy. Ruby was not happy.

I think Ruby appreciated our one-week absence.