Neil Gaiman's Journal

Furball is an astonishingly fat cat. She is so fat that many people, on seeing her for the first time, start impromptu comedy routines ("Is that a cat or a pumpkin? That cat's so fat you could use it as a pillow! I'm not saying that cat's fat, but, well, she is pretty fat, actually." etc.) She's a long-haired confection of orange, white and black, and is faintly reminiscent of a calico feline walrus. Her many skills include convincing everyone in the house, and some people who are just passing through, that she hasn't been fed in weeks, and convincing gullible songbirds that a cat that heavy and spherical could never jump high enough to be any kind of danger.

Being incredibly fat means that she often sits up on a chair or a sofa, on her haunches, like a person, which can be slightly off-putting. It also means she can't always clean herself properly. She's developing dreadlocks.

So tonight I gritted my teeth, rolled up my sleeves, and washed her. In the sink.

When she stood bolt upright and started trying to sink her claws into the mirror above the sink to get away, I merely smiled and carried on washing her. I knew that cat-claws, while wonderful things, cannot get traction on the glass of a mirror. And that just-trimmed cat-claws can't allow a cat the size and shape of a small walrus to climb sheer glass.

Nobody had explained these simple things to Furball, though, and she went straight up the side of the mirror.

Sooner or later, I'll figure out how.