the jmeoww diaries: v.11

Fans, today is a special day. My dear friend and Jmeoww Fan Club President, Ashley, has shared with us her amazing artistic talents for this edition of JMD. I cannot stop giggling. Enjoy!

It all started with her fucking collar.

It just disappeared. Yes, it was a safety release collar but how could it just disappear? We hypothesized the many fates that befell said collar.

• She threw it off the balcony during her nightly neighborhood watch shift.

• She shoved it down the garbage disposal because it totally was making a funny noise the other night.

• She left it at her boyfriend's house.
  
  

• And my favorite — she ate it. LISTEN. I never ever found her favorite pink fish kitten toy when we moved and I still believe that she ate it. So why wouldn't she eat a collar?!?

We half-ass looked for it a few times and continued to joke about until I had a panic attack that she was going to escape and not know her phone number. So I decided to really look and had another panic attack when I found it. The metal nametag was stuck in between two parts of my shoe rack. It was quite difficult for my human self to get the collar unstuck and then I had one of those Sookie Stackhouse moments in which I saw what happened to her as I touched the collar.

My poor precious angelmeoww had been STUCK by something around her NECK in a DARK closet! I wanted to cry. But I didn't. Because she was watching me remove the collar. Pissed because I was in her hiding spot, I thought. But then I pulled the collar out and holy shit. She looked at it and visibly trembled. Like it all came back to her in that one single moment of terror. MY POOR ANGELMEOWW. 

Now please note that my moments of extreme sympathy are few and far between with that one. Mostly because my ankles are consistently covered in blood and scratches. But this moment — not unlike the time I put a dragon hat on and made her puff up 3 times her size because she was so scared — this moment was heartbreaking. 

We left it on Justin's desk because that is where things go to die. That is also where she conducts her business so each time she was on the desk, she would sniff the collar and bat at it. I called this "immersion therapy" and assumed that she was ready to have it back on. So back on it went.

And then things changed. She stopped greeting me at the door when I got home from work. She wouldn't even come out when her boyfriend got home from work. She would meow from under the bed to let us know that she still existed, but she would not move. Even all of the shreddy cheese and treats in the world wouldn't get her to come out from under the bed.

When she did come out from under the bed she would not leave the room. Like would not cross that threshold. The PTSD she was experiencing was far too severe and we thought that she would never return to her old angelic-self ever again.

So Justin, being the softhearted slave to the jmeoww that he is, removed the collar. 

And then things changed, again. SHE WAS FREE, YOU GUYS! The trauma. The torture. IT WAS ALL OVER CAN WE PLAY NOW? How about now? Should we play now? CAN YOU AT LEAST SIT ON THE FLOOR BY ME? I've only had 6 treats, do you have any more? ARE THOSE MY TREATS?

I'm pretty sure Justin has been playing with her ever since. Her energy level? Unmatched by any cat I've experienced in my life. And we can't just give her toys to play with. WE are her toys. She requires us to interact with her. And by us I mean Justin because my ass is too busy watching Scandal and also she bullies me. She Has. Not. Stopped. since that fateful day Justin removed her collar.

She also somehow got the idea in her tinyass head that if she came in our bedroom at 6 am and stood next to the bed and consistently meowed, that we would know that it was time to play again and we would get up and play! AT 6 AM! Yes, we would get up and feed her. But she followed us back into the bedroom every damn time and meowed. And meowed. And meowed. And although it breaks my heart, she is now banned from the bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.

Will she ever wear a collar again? Unclear at this point. I'd like her to because, hello accessories! But until then, the burden and terror of those dark times in her life are gone and she finally can be herself again.

To see more of Ashley's work, visit her blog!