The Bath

Billy the cat did not want to be bathed. He was going to be bathed and he knew as much, but he really did not want to be bathed. In particular, he did not want to be submerged in a bin of lukewarm water where two hands would violate him in the most violating way by rubbing anti-flea shampoo into his coat and rinsing it.

Billy knew it was a day of The Bath as soon as he heard the sounds of a faucet turning on and water running into a bin. Two familiar arms wrapped around his body and lifted him up. There ain't no way, Billy thought to himself, ain't no way! The Bath was as inevitable as a trip to the litter box, but he knew he had to at least try to escape. And so, as the splashing sound of running water became too much to bear, Billy made a break for it.

Exhibiting super-feline strength, he pried apart the arms that held him and immediately climbed the shoulders of the person carrying him, ears fully perked, whiskers fully raised. This is it, he though, his heart thumping in his perked ears, my escape! Yet before he could pounce off the shoulders into the great beyond, the hands firmly grasped his flank, and repositioned him. And before he knew it, he felt the sickening sensation of warm water surrounding his hind legs and he realized with horror that he was in The Bath.

As warm water tricked down his back and ran down his shoulders, he never stopped trying to escape his foamy fate. He nudged his nose through the curtain of the bathtub, his eyes blinking wildly, hoping that he could escape the two hands that held him firmly in his bath. But each time he stretched his neck, the hand would pull him back to The Bath, the warm, sudsy bath where an unintelligible voice would speak to him, words of another species that, for the time being, he hated so much for subjecting him to the indignity of wet fur and artificially fragrant anti-flea shampoo.

Indeed, Billy hated The Bath. Yet afterwards, he would be lifted into a soft white towel where he was tousled and was allowed to run freely and compose himself by properly grooming the feline fro The Bath undoubtedly created.

No hard feelings, Billy thought to himself as he licked his left paw. They do it because they care. Another lick to the paw.

Plus, next time, I will escape.