By Jim Hagarty
2013
I am mad at my cat Luigi. Really mad, in fact. If he lived at your house, you would be too.
The reason I am upset is the boy will not look after his teeth. I have told him and told him to take better care of them, but he won’t. He is stubborn as a billy goat. As a result, the vet has recommended Luigi be administered the Dental Preventative Package. This will cost Luigi $473.41. As he does not have a very high income at the moment, I will be forced to take it out of his weekly allowance, a bit at a time.
However, if, in the course of getting the Dental Preventative Package, it is discovered the Luigi will need a tooth pulled, he is going to have to cough up $8.14 per minute for 30 minutes of surgery for a cost of $244.20. Of course, he will also require 30 units of Isoflurane Maintenance at $3.30 for another $99. He will also need $71.46 of pre-anesthetic/surgery blood work. And finally, Luigi will have to dig into his mad money to come up with $30.50 for the blood collection fee.
The total for all this work will be $976.44 taxes included. That is if he needs only one tooth pulled. If he needs two, the price would rise by another $503.03 for a total of $1,479.47.
To recap: to clean the cat’s teeth will be $473.41 and to remove one tooth will increase the price to $976.44, two teeth, $1,479.47. To fix the teeth. Of a cat. A cat.
I have lectured Luigi till I am blue in the face and my own teeth hurt and he hides behind the water heater because he doesn’t want to listen any more. But it’s clear. He is going to have to get a job. If we pay all his bills for him, how will he ever learn to be responsible? Those mice don’t catch themselves, I have told him.
He doesn’t listen. To him I am just a great big can opener with an attitude.
To increase the misery, Luigi has a twin brother Mario who has somehow managed to keep his biters in pretty good shape so far. If his go bad, we will all be moving into the poor house.
