Cat Barf

*
I woke up during the night to a familiar sound: my cat, about to throw up on the carpet beside my bed. In my half-awake state of consciousness, I decided to do nothing about it. It would still be there in the morning, I reasoned.

Why do humans and cats vomit in different ways? And for different reasons? Me, I throw up if I'm sick. I feel nauseated, grab the toilet, and out it comes. BLAAAHH! BLAAAHH! This probably means that I'm going to throw up in the near future, too. And when I am no longer sick, I no longer vomit. I don't like to.

My cat though, she seems to throw up basically because she wants to. She eats, she throws up. She wakes up from a nap, she throws up. She's not sick, she just kind of empties herself, and that's the end of the episode.

The other thing is, there is plenty of warning about what is going to happen. If I get sick, I rush to the bathroom, because I'm about to spew all over the place unless I get there in time. Through a combination of a nearby toilet and dumb luck, I've always managed to lose my lunch into the john without any collateral spraying. And it all happened with one single, gut-wrenching squeeze. With the cat though, it's like this:

The Cat: Hurk! Hurk! Hurk! Hurk!
My Roommate: Hey! The cat's gonna barf! Ha ha ha!
Me : Aw, crap...
The Cat: Hurk! Hurk! Hurk! Hurk!
My Roommate: She's still going! Quick, put her on the kitchen floor!
The Cat: Hurk! Hur-braackk!
My Roommate: Shoot.

The thing is, after it's all over, she acts like nothing has just happened. She grooms herself a bit, and strolls away from the mess like it's all part of her day (which, I guess, it is). No residual nausea. Why does she do it? To make room for more food? I sometimes notice in the little pile of puke kibble pieces that are completely intact. Maybe these were disrupting her stomach? Also, how the hell did she swallow them?



Here she is. Ain't she a stinker?

When I woke up this morning, the ejected kibble I was expecting to find was mysteriously missing. Not even a stain on the floor. This is another key difference between cats and humans: sometimes, if I ignore the problem, and if I'm very lucky, my cat will eat her own vomit.

Vive la difference!