Mister Tries to Eat a Coat Hanger

One of our most oft-repeated buddy tales involves Mister, who seems to get in more trouble than any of the other cats, despite being a stereotypical "fraidy cat."  At this point in our history together, Mister had still not really learned to accept Sean.  Mister and I came into our relationship with Sean together, along with Mango, and Mister was not amused by Sean's and my companionship. 

One night I was washing dishes after dinner, when suddenly I heard and felt Mister go rushing by my legs in a complete tear.  I looked at Sean and said (somewhat uncharitably), "What did you do to Mister?"  Unbeknownst to me, Sean, it turned out, had just saved Mister's life. 

Sean was sitting on the couch watching TV when suddenly Wanda came trotting urgently in from the bedroom and began chirping at him in her characteristically worried-looking way.  At first, Sean paid very little attention.  She trotted back into the bedroom, then came back out to the living room again, chirping determinedly.  Finally, Sean decided to follow her.  (Apparently Timmy had fallen into a well, and needed to be rescued.)

What he found when he entered the bedroom might have been even worse than being stuck in a well.  Mister was on the bed, and had one of those white plastic coat hangers sticking out of his mouth, vertically.  The hook was in his mouth, and Mister had defecated on the bed.  It was no wonder.  He suddenly realized that this time, he had screwed up big time. The only thing we can figure is that he started chewing on the end of the coat hanger, somehow got it in the back of his throat, and then his swallowing instinct took over, to his detriment.  If Mister had jumped off the bed in this state, he would have easily ripped his throat out, ending his life in a painful and ignominious manner.

As Sean was fighting the urge to go grab a camera (since he was firmly convinced that nobody would believe him on this one), he had to think fast to figure out what to do.  Finally, he sat next to the cat who had treated him, up to this point, with nothing but disdain, grabbed him firmly, and then slowly, ever so slowly, used his thumb to try to pull the coat hanger gently out of Mister's throat.  Mister, meanwhile, clawed at him and fought him with every life-saving pull.  Finally, the coat hanger was freed, and Sean let Mister go. 

We bundled Mister into a cat carrier and got into the car to head to the emergency vet.  Sean brought along the coat hanger as Exhibit A.  As I was making a right hand turn onto the road where the ER vet was, we saw blue lights in the rear-view mirror and had to pull over.  As the cop sauntered up to the window to inform me that I had just made a right at a "no right on red," I told him matter-of-factly, "Officer, my cat just swallowed a coat hanger."  He looked at me quizzically for a second until Sean, in the back seat, held up the coat hanger, with just a tiny bit of blood and saliva at the end of the hook.  The officer looked at the coat hanger, saw the cat carrier, and waved me on.  I will be forever grateful to him for that.

Turns out that Mister was fine.  His throat was slightly abraded, and he makes a wide berth around any coat hangers that he sees lying around now.  (We try not to leave them lying around, for that very reason.)  And suddenly, Mister doesn't seem to have a problem with Sean anymore.  It's amazing how far saving a life can go towards starting a beautiful friendship.  Mister doesn't seem to mind Wanda anymore, either.