I just got this in an Email:
"Catch of the Day" by Patti Schroeder
> This is the story of the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head
> stuck in the garbage disposal. I knew at the time that the experience
> would be funny if the cat survived, so let me tell you right up front
> that he's fine.
>
> Getting him out wasn't easy, though, and the process included numerous
> home remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary
> clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen
> minutes of fame.
>
> First, some background. My husband, Rich, and I had just returned from
> a five-day spring-break vacation in the Cayman Islands, where I had been
> sick as a dog the whole time, trying to convince myself that if I had to
> feel lousy, it was better to do it in paradise. We had arrived home at
> 9 p.m., a day and a half later than we had planned because of airline
> problems. I still had illness-related vertigo, and because of the
> flight delays, had not been able to prepare the class I was supposed to
> teach at 8:40 the next morning.
>
> I sat down at my desk to think about William Carlos Williams, and around
> ten o'clock I heard Rich hollering something indecipherable from the
> kitchen. As I raced out to see what was wrong, I saw Rich frantically
> rooting around under the kitchen sink and Rudy or, rather, Rudy's
> headless body scrambling around in the sink, his claws clicking in panic
> on the metal.
>
> Rich had just ground up the skin of some smoked salmon in the garbage
> disposal, and when he left the room, Rudy (whom we always did call a
> pinhead) had gone in after it.
>
> It is very disturbing to see the headless body of your cat in the sink.
> This is an animal that I have slept with nightly for ten years, who
> burrows under the covers and purrs against my side, and who now looked
> like a desperate, fur-covered turkey carcass, set to defrost in the sink
> while it's still alive and kicking. It was also disturbing to see Rich,
> Mr. Calm-in-an-Emergency, at his wits end, trying to soothe Rudy,
> trying to undo the garbage disposal, failing at both, and basically
> freaking out.
>
> Adding to the chaos was Rudy's twin brother Lowell, also upset, racing
> around in circles, jumping onto the kitchen counter and alternately
> licking Rudy's butt for comfort and biting it out of fear. Clearly, I
> had to do something.
>
> First we tried to ease Rudy out of the disposal by lubricating his head
> and neck. We tried Johnson's baby shampoo (kept on hand for my nieces'
> visits) and butter-flavored Crisco: both failed, and a now-greasy Rudy
> kept struggling. Rich then decided to take apart the garbage disposal,
> which was a good idea, but he couldn't do it. Turns out, the thing is
> constructed like a metal onion: you peel off one layer and another one
> appears, with Rudy's head still buried deep inside, stuck in a hard
> plastic collar.
>
> My job during this process was to sit on the kitchen counter petting
> Rudy, trying to calm him, with the room spinning (vertigo), Lowell
> howling (he's part Siamese), and Rich clattering around with tools.
>
> When all our efforts failed, we sought professional help. I called our
> regular plumber, who actually called me back quickly, even at 11 o'clock
> at night (thanks, Dave). He talked Rich through further layers of
> disposal dismantling, but still we couldn't reach Rudy. I called the
> 1-800 number for Insinkerator (no response), a pest removal service that
> advertises 24-hour service (no response), an all-night emergency
> veterinary clinic (who had no experience in this matter, and so, no
> advice), and finally, in desperation, 911.
>
> I could see that Rudy's normally pink paw pads were turning blue. The
> fire department, I figured, gets cats out of trees; maybe they could get
> one out of a garbage disposal. The dispatcher had other ideas and
> offered to send over two policemen. This suggestion gave me pause. I'm
> from the sixties, and even if I am currently a fine upstanding citizen, I
> had never considered calling the cops and asking them to come to my house,
> on purpose. I resisted the suggestion but the dispatcher was adamant:
> "They'll help you out," he said.
>
> The cops arrived close to midnight and turned out to be quite nice.
> More importantly, they were also able to think rationally, which we were
> not. They were, of course, quite astonished by the situation: "I've never
> seen anything like this," Officer Mike kept saying. (The unusual
> circumstances helped us get quickly on a first-name basis with our
> cops.)
>
> Officer Tom, who expressed immediate sympathy for our plight. "I've had
> cats all my life," he said, comfortingly also had an idea. Evidently we
> needed a certain tool, a tiny, circular rotating saw, that could cut
> through the heavy plastic flange encircling Rudy's neck without hurting
> Rudy, and Officer Tom happened to own one. "I live just five minutes
> from here," he said; "I'll go get it." He soon returned, and the three
> of them Rich and the two policemen got under the sink together to cut
> through the garbage disposal.
>
> I sat on the counter, holding Rudy and trying not to succumb to the
> surrealness of the scene, with the weird middle-of-the-night lighting,
> the room's occasional spinning, Lowell's spooky sound effects, an
> apparently headless cat in my sink and six disembodied legs poking out
> from under it. One good thing came of this: the guys did manage to get
> the bottom off of the disposal, so we could now see Rudy's face and knew
> he could breathe. But they couldn't cut the flange without risking the
> cat.
>
> Stumped.
>
> Officer Tom had another idea. "You know," he said, "I think the reason
> we can't get him out is the angle of his head and body. If we could
> just get the sink out and lay it on its side, I'll bet we could slip him
> out." That sounded like a good idea at this point, ANYTHING would have
> sounded like a good idea and as it turned out, Officer Mike runs a
> plumbing business on weekends; he knew how to take out the sink!
>
> Again they went to work, the three pairs of legs sticking out from under
> the sink surrounded by an ever-increasing pile of tools and sink parts.
> They cut the electrical supply, capped off the plumbing lines,
> unfastened the metal clamps, unscrewed all the pipes, and about an hour
> later, viola! the sink was lifted gently out of the counter top, with one
> guy holding the garbage disposal (which contained Rudy's head) up close to
> the sink (which contained Rudy's body). We laid the sink on its side, but
> even at this more favorable removal angle, Rudy stayed stuck.
>
> Officer Tom's radio beeped, calling him away on some kind of real police
> business. As he was leaving, though, he had another good idea: "You
> know," he said, "I don"t think we can get him out while he"s struggling
> so much. We need to get the cat sedated. If he were limp, we could
> slide him out." And off he went, regretfully, a cat lover still worried
> about Rudy.
>
> The remaining three of us decided that getting Rudy sedated was a good
> idea, but Rich and I were new to the area. We knew that the overnight
> emergency veterinary clinic was only a few minutes away, but we didn't
> know exactly how to get there. "I know where it is!" declared Officer
> Mike. "Follow me!" So Mike got into his patrol car, Rich got into the
> driver's seat of our car, and I got into the back, carrying the kitchen
> sink, what was left of the garbage disposal, and Rudy.
>
> It was now about 2:00 a.m.
>
> We followed Officer Mike for a few blocks when I decided to put my hand
> into the garbage disposal to pet Rudy's face, hoping I could comfort
> him. Instead, my sweet, gentle bedfellow chomped down on my finger, hard
> really hard and wouldn't let go. My scream reflex kicked into gear, and
> I couldn't stop the noise. Rich slammed on the breaks, hollering "What?
> What happened? Should I stop?", checking us out in the rearview
> mirror."No," I managed to get out between screams, "Just keep driving.
> Rudy's biting me, but we've got to get to the vet. Just go!"
>
> Rich turned his attention back to the road, where Officer Mike took a
> turn we hadn't expected, and we followed. After a few minutes Rudy let
> go, and as I stopped screaming, I looked up to discover that we were
> wandering aimlessly through an industrial park, in and out of empty
> parking lots, past little streets that didn't look at all familiar.
>
> "Where's he taking us?" I asked. "We should have been there ten minutes
> ago!" Rich was as mystified as I was, but all we knew to do was follow
> the police car until, finally, he pulled into a church parking lot and
> we pulled up next to him. Rich rolled down the window to ask, "Mike,
> where are we going?"
>
> The cop, who was NOT Mike, rolled down his window and asked, "Why are
> you following me?" Once Rich and I recovered from our shock at having
> tailed the wrong cop car, and the policeman from his pique at being
stalked, he
> led us quickly to the emergency vet, where Mike greeted us by holding
> open the door, exclaiming, "Where were you guys???"
>
> It was lucky that Mike got to the vet's ahead of us, because we hadn't
> thought to call and warn them about what was coming. (Clearly, by this
> time we weren't really thinking at all.) We brought in the kitchen sink
> containing Rudy and the garbage disposal containing his head, and the
> clinic staff was ready. They took his temperature (which was down 10
> degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet
> declared: "This cat is in serious shock. We've got to sedate him and
> get him out of there immediately." When I asked if it was OK to sedate
> a cat in shock, the vet said grimly, "We don't have a choice."
>
> With that, he injected the cat; Rudy went limp; and the vet squeezed
> about half a tube of K-Y jelly onto the cat's neck and pulled him free.
> Then the whole team jumped into "code blue" mode. (I know this from
> watching a lot of ER.) They laid Rudy on a cart, where one person hooked
> up IV fluids, another put little socks on his paws ("You'd be amazed how
> much heat they lose through their pads," she said), one covered him with
> hot water bottles and a blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up
> Rudy's now very gunky head. The fur on his head dried in stiff little
> spikes, making him look rather pathetically punk as he lay there, limp
> and motionless.
>
> At this point they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in the waiting room
> while they tried to bring Rudy back to life. I told Mike he didn't have
> to stay, but he just stood there, shaking his head. "I've never seen
> anything like this," he said again.
>
> At about 3 a.m, the vet came in to tell us that the prognosis was good
> for a full recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight to re-hydrate
> him and give him something for the brain swelling they assumed he had,
> but if all went well, we could take him home the following night. Just
> in time to hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished with his
> real police work and concerned about Rudy.
>
> I figured that once this ordeal was over and Rudy was home safely, I
> would have to re-think my position on the police. Rich and I got back
> home about 3:30. We hadn't unpacked from our trip, I was still
> intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn't prepared my 8:40 class. "I
> need a vacation," I said, and while I called the office to leave a
> message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis.
>
> I slept late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy's
> condition until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I
> was working on the suitcases when the phone rang. "Hi, this is Steve
> Huskey from the Norristown Times-Herald," a voice told me. "Listen,
> I was just going through the police blotter from last night. Mostly
> it's the usual stuff: breaking and entering, petty theft, but there's
> this one item. Um, do you have a cat?" So I told Steve the whole story,
> which interested him. A couple hours later he called back to say that
> his editor was interested, too; did I have a picture of Rudy?
>
> The next day Rudy was front-page news, under the ridiculous headline
> "Catch of the Day Lands Cat in Hot Water." There were some noteworthy
> repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr. Huskey had somehow
> inferred that I called 911 because I thought Rich, my husband, was going
> into shock, although how he concluded this from my comment that "his pads
> were turning blue," I don't quite understand. So the first thing I had to
> do
> was call Rich at work--Rich, who had worked tirelessly to free Rudy--and
> swear that I had been misquoted.
>
> When I arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been calling my
> secretary all morning to inquire about Rudy's health. When I called our
> regular vet (whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up appointment
> for Rudy, the receptionist asked, "Is this the famous Rudy's mother?"
> When I brought my car in for routine maintenance a few days later, Dave,
> my mechanic, said, "We read about your cat. Is he OK?" When I called a
> tree surgeon about my dying red oak, he asked if I knew the person on
> that street whose cat had been in the garbage disposal. And when I went
> to get my hair cut, the shampoo person told me the funny story her grandma
> had read in the paper, about a cat who got stuck in the garbage disposal.
>
> Even today, over a year later, people ask about Rudy, whom an 9-year-old
> neighbor had always called "the Adventure Cat" because he used to climb
> on the roof of her house and peer in the second-story window at her.
>
> I don't know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this
> "adventure" cost me $1100 in emergency vet bills, follow-up vet care,
> new sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage disposal,
> one with a cover. The vet can no longer say he's seen everything but the
> kitchen sink.
>
> I wanted to thank Officers Tom and Mike by giving them gift certificates
> to the local hardware store, but was told that they couldn't accept
> gifts, that I would put them in a bad position if I tried. So I wrote a
> letter to the Police Chief praising their good deeds and sent individual
> thank-you notes to Tom and Mike, complete with pictures of Rudy, so they
> could see what he looks like with his head on.
>
> And Rudy, whom we originally got for free (or so we thought), still
> sleeps with me under the covers on cold nights and unaccountably, he
> still sometimes prowls the sink, hoping for fish.
------------------------------------------------------
True?
Yep!
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