High cost of dying spares Skunky the damncat

Now to really serious matters:
We had to say goodbye to the old General, reigning and favorite of the household damncats. That’s the way it goes; the most affectionate and beautiful of the cadre loses his health while the outside feral scruffs, who recognize the hand that feeds them only when it’s feeding them, remain sleek and healthy for years. He was a Himalayan with bright blue eyes. When he began showing signs of kidney failure, we knew it was only a matter of time.
His time coincided with that of another damncat’s. Skunky was one of those ferals and encountered such a trauma that she was absent from her usual spot on the front porch for two days and when she was returned appeared to be paralyzed and near death, but without visible injury or disfigurement.
I left for New Orleans one Saturday morning expecting to facilitate two euthanasias and called ahead to make sure the vet would be on hand. As it turned out, the vet saved Skunky. Here’s how it happened:
I took the General first, knowing that his departure would weigh heaviest. I held him in my arms as we were hurried through the office routine and into the treatment room. The vet came in and explained that the procedure that would involve two shots. Then he told me the obscenely exorbitant price that he was going to charge for the euthanasia.
What a conundrum, I thought to myself. There was no future in leaving the loving old creature to suffer longer. Rosemary had accompanied us there and said her tearful goodbye before walking back home on her own. So I agreed to pay it.
Once the deed was done and I was paying up prior to leaving, he asked about the other damncat that I had mentioned when I had talked with his receptionist on the way back to New Orleans.
“Uhh, I think we’ll give her overnight and then decide,” I told him and returned home where my wife continued petting Skunky on whom we otherwise could never have even touched. She lay in a cardboard box where Rosemary had placed her in the living room near the front door.
And that’s where Skunky remained until about 3 a.m. the following morning when I was awakened by the sound of a car horn, honk-honk-honking its alarm. As my deep sleep reluctantly released me, I realized that the honking was coming from in front of our house, where my car was parked.
As I jumped from bed and strode quickly and purposefully toward the front door to investigate, Skunky laying in the box directly in path never crossed my mind — not until she jumped from the box and over the back of the couch to hide.
Skunky had begun a remarkable recovery that soon had her back on the front porch and living again in fear of the hand that feeds her, thanks to the vet who overpriced euthanasia.
It wasn’t my car honking, just one nearby.