Cat Care Update

My cat Panther is far more popular than I am myself so I didn't want to deny his adoring public news about the flea problem we had of late. The poor beast was pretty uncomfortable there for a while but I had a good talk with the vet about how to kill the fleas without killing the cat—he's got a whacking heart murmur and had some very serious kidney problems a couple of years ago. But she suggested this topical goop called Revolution, and two days later he's much happier.

So I guess it's a good product and all, but sheesh, I was just at their website and it's all fun and whimsical and so forth to the point that it was actually kind of weird. There are pictures of cats carrying little signs saying "Down with fleas," and there's a game you can play to test your knowledge, and it's written from the cat's viewpoint—"We the cats of America deserve freedom from..." and so forth. Yo, listen up, marketing people at Revolution: I appreciate levity almost all the time but this is unnecessary. There's a time and a place, all that. You don't have to amuse or entertain me. Just kill the god-damn fleas, OK? That's really all I ask.

One other thing I did question, although I'm not sure what the answer is. In the package insert I read the list of side effects—I'm pretty protective of this cat—and of course like every medicine from pimple cream on up, there's a list of scary things that are possible, and the last one listed was "death." So I was wondering: Can you really consider death a side effect? Death tends to shoulder its way to the front of any group of effects you can observe, I'd say.

Anyway, long story short, the cat's feeling better and sends his greetings to all his well-wishers, as do I. He's chilling on my lap as I write this.