Appetite Suppressant

I love my cat. I've never seen another animal with such a personality. Archimedes (the cat in question) frequently hops up behind me on the chair I'm sitting in and rests his paw on my shoulder. No reason - just reminding me that he's there. His touch is so soft you'd barely notice. He follows me from room to room. He watches me make lunch as though it was just about the most interesting thing he's ever seen - and he's also hoping I drop some ham from my sandwich. He watches TV, and wakes me up in the morning when he feels it's time to get going. In short - he's filled the hole left when I lost my dog Maggie many years ago. While he doesn't bark, and he doesn't have floppy beagle ears, he does a good job.

Archimedes has one fatal flaw though - his stomach. An airborne trooper on a bumpy flight with vertigo who just ate bad guacamole would have a better time keeping his lunch down than my cat. Just like Old Faithful - you can pretty much predict that in the morning, the poor wretch is going to toss his Friskies. And before you send in cat advice on the comments page (which would at least generate some comments...time to step up readers), we've tried every food - wet and dry, and every kind of variety for sensitive stomachs, older cats, etc (he is 10 after all).

Now that I am a mere mortal again and living at home for the time being (oh grad school, you can't come soon enough), I have a new morning routine that actually involves, wait for it, eating. I can finally digest full meals - especially now that I'm not driving over a mountain while chewing my bagel. And this morning I was standing out in the kitchen, stirring my coffee and deciding if I wanted the English Muffin or the New York Style bagel - when disaster hit. The cat's stomach was about to strike yet again.

*burp* *burp* *Burp* *BURP*

My mother, reflexes quick as the cat she was grabbing - instantly responded to the impending up-chucking. Having cleaned the carpet oh so many times - her new strategy for victory over vomit is to fling the cat - mid retch - into the kitchen on the hard tiled floor. Unfortunately for me, I was standing in the kitchen, deciding on breakfast - which I was about to quickly lose interest in.

In came the cat - at a quickly descending altitude and increasing speed - panic in his poor kitty eyes and working on hacking up that nice warm puddle of goo that we all know. It must be tough on the old guy - you already don't feel good, you're in the process of involuntarily vomiting up the contents of your stomach and some woman comes along, scoops you up miles into the air, and flings at mach 3 you into the next room. And in came Archimedes - flying in like a vomiting caped crusader.

Two feet from my slippers he heaved and pushed and groaned and then it came, seconds later; that wonderful sloppy wet splatter of stomach contents meeting cold linoleum. He then licked his chops, shook his head, and stumbled off, clearly worse for the trip. I stood - my spoon hanging millimeters above my morning cup of joe - my face contorting into a look of nausea, disgust, and pity for the old lad.

My breakfast now decided - I'll just have some coffee.