Cat's Paw

I am in the habit of sitting on the sofa in my office when I'm going to veg (or work for that matter) on the laptop for a few hours. Something about the height of my desk vs. the height of my chair hurts my knees (dangly feet syndrome, allllllll shorties get it, you know you do!). Anyway, as he is wont to do, Bob came over and curled up next to me on the sofa and that's when I noticed it.

Mr. Face's back feet were both encrusted with cat-liter. Like...hard-core. I can only imagine such a thing happened thusly:

1) Abbey took a shower.

2) Bob (being the weirdest cat in the world) climbed into the wet bathtub to lick the dripping water from the faucet and shower curtain (I have asked the vets about this, it's as much a mystery to them as it is to me. Bob is a strange creature, and yes, before you ask, there are two giant water bowls in the house, both completely full. Bob prefers the dog's water bowl to his own though, oddly enough...).

3) Bob, who now had wet paws from being in the shower, decided it was time to go visit the loo and, presto, crusty feet.

Anyway, the point is this: They were crusty and it needed to come off, because that was looking like infection city.

So, I ask Charles to help me pin the cat while I scrub at his foot with a wet towel.

This....was not Bob's favorite thing in the world. Charles gets scratched and the cat goes off thinking we are picking on him again (also, he may never trust us again when we start using the weedle-Bob voice).

So Charles makes the mad suggestion: Let's fill the bottom of the bathtub up with nice, warm water and then toss the cat it. His feet'll get soaked, it'll loosen up all that clay, and then we can rub him down and get most of it off.

Well, I didn't have a better idea so said sure, why the hell not. So, I fill the tub with two inches of lovely warm water, we tempt the cat into the bathroom with treats and the weedly-Bob voice and shut the door behind him. Then I pick the cat up and, very gently, set him down feet-first in the water.

And...Bob does nothing. He stands still, then starts to try to walk to the other end of the bathtub (not in a panicky way, just in a casual cat way) but when he realizes that that way lays more water he just assumes this peculiar stiff-legged stance and stays put. I'm not kidding, the cat stood, willingly (I just had my hand gently on his back to encourage him to stay that way and keep him calm) for I'd say three minutes. Then we let him jump out, scrubbed his foot off (we'll probably have to do the other paw again tonight) and let him go.

He seems to already be in the process of forgiving me.

But let me just point out that my cat DID NOT FREAK OUT. What the hell sort of cat doesn't wig when it ends up in water?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want him to wig. I'm just saying he's an odd cat. We'll put this in his "weird things Bob will do" column, right under "lovin'-up on the dog."