___
This is the story of the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head
stuck in the garbage disposal. I knew at the time that the experience
would
be funny if the cat survived, so let me tell you right up front that the
cat is
fine. 
   
Getting him out wasn't easy, though, and the process included numerous
home remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary
clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen
minutes of fame. 
   
My husband Rich and I had just returned from a 5 day vacation in the
Cayman Islands--where I had been sick as a dog the whole time. We
arrived
home at 9 p.m., a day and a half later than we had planned because of
airline problems. I still had illness-related vertigo, and because of
the
flight delays, had not been able to prepare for the class I was supposed
to
teach at 8:40 the next morning. I sat down at my desk to think about
William
Carlos Williams, and around ten o'clock I heard Rich hollering from the
kitchen. 
   
I raced over to see what was wrong and spied Rich frantically rooting
around under the kitchen sink and Rudy--or, rather, Rudy's headless
body--scrambling around in the sink, his claws clicking in panic on the
metal and his head stuck in the garbage disposal. Rich had just ground
up
the skin of some smoked salmon in the disposal, and when he left the
room,
Rudy (who always was a pinhead) had gone in after it. 
   
It is very disturbing to see the headless body of your cat in the sink.
This is an animal that I have slept with nightly for ten years, who
burrows
under the covers and purrs against my side, and who now looked like a
fur-covered turkey carcass, defrosting in the sink while it's still
alive
and kicking.   It was also disturbing to see Rich, Mr.
Calm-in-any-Emergency, at his wit's end, trying to simultaneously soothe
Rudy and undo the garbage disposal, and failing at both, and basically
freaking out. 
   
Adding to the chaos was Rudy's twin brother Lowell, also upset, racing
around in circles, jumping onto the kitchen counter and alternately
licking
Rudy's butt for comfort and biting it out of fear. Clearly, I had to do
something. 
   
First we tried to ease Rudy out of the disposal by lubricating his head
and neck with Johnson's baby shampoo (kept on hand for my nieces'
visits)
and butter-flavored Crisco. Both failed, and a now-greasy Rudy kept
struggling. Rich then decided to take apart the garbage disposal, which
was
a good idea, but he couldn't do it. Turns out, the thing is constructed
like
a metal onion: you peel off one layer and another one appears, with
Rudy's
head still buried deep inside, stuck in a hard plastic collar. 
   
My job during this process was to sit on the kitchen counter petting
Rudy,
trying to calm him, with the room spinning (vertigo), Lowell howling
(he's
part Siamese), and Rich clattering around under the sink with his tools.

   
When all our efforts failed, we sought professional help. I called our
regular plumber, who actually called me back quickly, even at 11 o'clock
at
night (thanks, Dave). He talked Rich through further layers of disposal
dismantling, but still we couldn't reach Rudy. 
   
I called the 1-800 number for Insinkerator (no response), a pest removal
service that advertises 24-hour service (no response), an all-night
emergency veterinary clinic (who had no experience in this matter), and
finally, in desperation, 9-1-1. I could see that Rudy's normally pink
paw
pads were turning blue. The fire department, I figured, gets cats out of
trees; maybe they could get one out of a garbage disposal. 
   
The dispatcher had other ideas and offered to send over two policemen.
The
cops arrived close to midnight and turned out to be quite nice.  More
importantly, they were also able to think rationally, which we were not.
They were, of course, astonished by the situation. 
   
"I've never seen anything like this," Officer Mike kept saying. (The 
unusual circumstances helped us get quickly on a first- name basis with
our
cops.)   Officer Tom, who expressed immediate sympathy for our plight
("I've
had cats all my life," he said), also had an idea. Evidently we needed a
certain tool, a tiny, circular rotating saw, that could cut through the
heavy plastic flange encircling Rudy's neck without hurting Rudy.
Officer
Tom happened to own one. "I live just five minutes from here," he said.
"I'll go get it." 
   
He soon returned, and the three of them--Rich and the two policemen--got
under the sink together to cut through the garbage disposal. I sat on
the
counter, holding Rudy and trying not to succumb to the surreal-ness of
the
scene, with the weird middle-of-the-night lighting, the room's
occasional
spinning, Lowell's spooky sound effects, an apparently headless cat in
my
sink and six disembodied legs poking out from under it. One good thing
came
of this: the guys did manage to get the bottom off the disposal, so we
could
now see Rudy's face and knew he could breathe. But they couldn't cut the
flange without risking the cat. Stumped. 
   
Officer Tom had another idea. "You know," he said, "I think the reason
we
can't get him out is the angle of his head and body. (you can see where
this
is going, can't you?) "If we could just get the sink out," he continued,
"and lay it on its side, I'll bet we could slip him out." 
   
That sounded like a good idea--at this point, ANYTHING would have
sounded
like a good idea--and as it turned out, Officer Mike runs a plumbing
business on weekends; he knew how to take out the sink! Again they went
to
work, the three pairs of legs sticking out from under the sink,
surrounded
by an ever-increasing pile of tools and sink parts. 
   
They cut the electrical supply, capped off the plumbing lines,
unfastened
the metal clamps, unscrewed all the pipes, and about an hour later,
viola!
The sink was lifted gently out of the countertop, with one guy holding
the
garbage disposal which contained Rudy's head) up close to the sink
(which
contained Rudy's body). We laid the sink on its side, but even at this
more
favorable angle, Rudy stayed stuck. 
   
Officer Tom's radio beeped, calling him away on some kind of real police
business. As he was leaving, though, he had another good idea.  "You
know,"
he said, "I don't think we can get him out while he's struggling so
much. We
need to get the cat sedated. If he were limp, we could slide him out." 
   
And off he went, regretfully, a cat lover still worried about Rudy.  The
remaining three of us decided that getting Rudy sedated was a good idea,
but
Rich and I were new to the area. We knew that the overnight emergency
veterinary clinic was only a few minutes away, but we didn't know
exactly
how to get there. "I know where it is!" declared Officer Mike. "Follow
me!"    
So Mike got into his patrol car, Rich got into the driver's seat of our
car, and I got into the back, carrying the kitchen sink, what was left
of
the garbage disposal, and Rudy. It was now about 2:00 a.m. We followed
Officer Mike for a few blocks when I decided to put my hand into the
garbage
disposal to pet Rudy's face, hoping I could comfort him. 
   
Instead, my sweet, gentle bedfellow chomped down on my finger really
hard
and wouldn't let go. My scream reflex kicked into gear. Rich slammed on
the
brakes, hollering "What? What happened? Should I stop?" 
   
"No," I managed to get out between screams, "just keep driving. Rudy's
biting me, but we've got to get to the vet. Just go!" Rich turned his
attention back to the road, where Officer Mike took a turn we hadn't
expected, and we followed. After a few minutes Rudy let go, and as I
stopped
screaming, I looked up to discover that we were wandering aimlessly
through
an industrial park, in and out of empty parking lots, past little
streets
that didn't look at all familiar. 
   
"Where's he taking us?" I asked. "We should have been there ten minutes
ago!" Rich was as mystified as I was, but all we knew to do was follow
the
police car until, finally, he pulled into a church parking lot and we
pulled
up next to him. As Rich rolled down the window to ask Officer Mike,
where
are were going, the cop, who was not Mike, rolled down his window and
asked,
"Why are you following me?" 
   
Once Rich and I recovered from our shock at having tailed the wrong cop
car and the policeman from his pique at being stalked, he led us quickly
to
the emergency vet, where Mike greeted us by holding open the door,
exclaiming  "Where were you guys???" 
   
It was lucky that Mike got to the vet's ahead of us, because we hadn't
thought to call and warn them about what was coming. (Clearly, by this
time
we weren't really thinking at all.) We brought in the kitchen sink
containing Rudy, and the garbage disposal containing his head, and the
clinic staff was ready. They took his temperature (which was down 10
degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet
declared, "This cat is in serious shock. We've got to sedate him and get
him
out of there immediately." When I asked if it was OK to sedate a cat in
shock, the vet said grimly, "We don't have a choice." 
   
With that, he injected the cat. Rudy went limp and the vet squeezed
about
half a tube of K-Y jelly onto the cat's neck and pulled him free.   Then
the
whole team jumped into "code blue" mode. (I know this from watching a
lot of
ER.) They laid Rudy on a cart where one person hooked up IV fluids,
another
put little socks on his paws ("You'd be amazed how much heat they lose
through their footpads," she said), one covered him with hot water
bottles
and a blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up   Rudy's now
very
gunky head. 
   
The fur on his head dried in stiff little spikes, making him look 
pathetically punk as he lay there, limp and motionless. At this point 
they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in the waiting room while they tried
to
bring Rudy back to life. I told Mike he didn't have to stay, but he just
stood there, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like this," he
said
again and again. 
   
At about 3 a.m., the vet came in to tell us that the prognosis was good
for a full recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight to re-hydrate
him
and give him something for the brain swelling they assumed he had, but
if
all went well, we could take him home the following night. Just in time
to
hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished with his real police
work and concerned about Rudy. 
   
Rich and I got back home about 3:30. We hadn't unpacked from our trip, I
was still intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn't prepared for my 8:40
class. "I need a vacation," I said, and while I called the office to
leave a
message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis. 
   
I slept late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy's
condition
until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I was working on
the
suitcases when the phone rang. "Hi, this is Steve Huskey from the
Norristown
Times-Herald," a voice said. "Listen, I was just going through the
police
blotter from last night. Um, do you have a cat?" 
   
So I told Steve the whole story, which interested him immensely.   A
couple hours later he called back to say that his editor was 
interested, too; did I have a picture of Rudy? The next day Rudy was 
front-page news, under the ridiculous headline "Catch of the Day Lands
Cat
in Hot Water." 
   
There were some noteworthy repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr.
Huskey had somehow inferred that I called 9-1-1 because I thought Rich,
my
husband, was going into shock, although how he concluded this from my
comment that "his pads were turning blue," I don't quite understand. So
the
first thing I had to do was call Rich at work--Rich, who had worked
tirelessly to free Rudy--and swear that I had been misquoted. 
   
When I arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been calling my
secretary all morning to inquire about Rudy's health. When I called our
regular vet (whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up appointment
for
Rudy, the receptionist asked, "Is this the famous Rudy's mother?"   When
I
took my car in for routine maintenance a few days later, Dave, my
mechanic,
said, "We read about your cat. Is he OK?" When I called a tree surgeon
about
my dying red oak, he asked if I knew the person on that street whose cat
had
been in the garbage disposal. And when I went to get my hair cut, the
shampoo person told me the funny story her grandma had read in the
paper,
about a cat that got stuck in the garbage disposal. 
   
Even today, over a year later, people ask about Rudy, which a 9-year-old
neighbor had always called "the Adventure Cat" because he used to climb
on
the roof of her house and peer in the second-story window at her. 
   
I don't know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this
"adventure" cost me $1,100 in emergency vet bills, follow- up vet care,
new
sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage disposal--one
with a cover. The vet can no longer say he's seen everything but the
kitchen
sink. 
   
I wanted to thank Officers Tom and Mike by giving them gift certificates
to the local hardware store, but was told that they couldn't accept
gifts,
that I would put them in a bad position if I tried. So I wrote a letter
to
the Police Chief praising their good deeds and sent individual thank you
notes to Tom and Mike, complete with pictures of Rudy, so they could see
what he looks like with his head on. 
   
And Rudy, whom we originally got for free (or so we thought), still
sleeps
with me-under the covers on cold nights, and, unaccountably, still
sometimes
prowls the sink, hoping for fish.