Laxatives
You got too much information before, you say, when I wrote about Data and his enema?
No fear. This is a story about addiction and bargains.
No gruesome details, except to say that my kitten has become addicted to a lubricant/hairball remedy/laxative that apparently tastes good.
During the worst of his constipation a couple of months ago, it was a real struggle to get him to take the Laxatone. I had to wipe some on his paws, watch him dash off and thus shake most of it off, and then watch him lick the remainder off with wounded dignity.
I stopped giving it to him because he seemed to be better, but two or three weeks ago, I decided I needed to give him some preventative maintenance. Use your imagination as to why …
Anyway, he did the normal dash across the bathroom, streaming some of the melty brown gunk across the room, including on the rug.
Data is a licker. Licks faces. Licks hands. Has been known to lick laundry baskets. So he licked the rug and started looking for more. And then I discovered he truly liked the laxative; he just didn’t like the way he was forced to take it.
So I tried a little experiment. I squeezed some out for him, directly out of the tube. And he licked it up like a mad cat.
Now it has become a full-on addiction. No morning shower routine is complete without him jumping up to the counter and impatiently waiting for me to open the tube, squeeze a bit, and let him lick away.
I was also running out last week, so I decided to see if I could get an over-the-counter version of the Laxatone. It cost $26 at the vet, and I was not prepared to feed his addiction that far.
I glanced along the shelf of hairball remedies, looking for my cat’s drug. No, no, no … I thought for a minute about comparing the ingredients and bringing home a different brand. But wait … there it was. Laxatone.
Packaged differently than the vet version, in two different sizes. One was $9.99 and the other was $12.99, and the difference in sizes was double.
I wasn’t going to kid myself. My kitten is adamant about his morning treat now, and I knew he would be equal to the larger tube.
I glanced at the ingredients to make sure they were indeed the same. When I got it home, I compared it again to the starkly designed vet version. Red background, black type. For veterinary use only. Same ingredients. Packaged in a squeezeable metal tube instead of the OTC plastic.
The happy pet store version features white plastic, a picture of a cat and the more friendly term of for animal use only. Now what human wouldn’t like to ingest malt-flavor petroleum? Mmmm!
To my delight, I also discovered that I had bought twice as much laxative as the old tube, for half the cost. It’ll last longer and it was cheaper!
My bargain hunting was worth it, though Data doesn’t seem to like the tube of plastic as much as he did the metal.
Who knew you could get excited about pet laxative? Only Mel B, I suppose.
