Yesterday, we had to bring Nike, our large-eared, large-eyed and refreshingly small-brained cat, to the vet for his annual checkup. After a few games of hide-and-seek, or more accurately, ambush-pounce-and-squish-into-pet-carrier-nose-tail-and-all, we were on our way.

The vet was surprisingly warm with a smile that never left her face. After we’d finally extricated the quivering feline from the carrier, she started squeezing and squishing him all over the place before commenting, rather unexpectedly if you ask me, that Nike had a big head. I helpfully pointed out (via a finger in the direction of my sister’s head) that this was a trait that ran in the family. That got me swatted.

Not knowing what to make of all this, the vet continued with the examination. She poked Nike’s thighs, scoured his face and measured his heart rate before announcing that he was overweight. “Can you count the number of ribs he has?” she asked my sis who, after much prodding and pushing, declared decisively that Nike had precisely one rib. This elicited more finger-pointing from my mom and me at my sis for feeding him too much. Thankfully for her, the vet came to the rescue. Apparently, any pet food you can find in supermarkets, e.g. Whiskas and Friskies, while tasting good, is also high in salt and fat. “They’re the equivalent of Mcdonald’s for pets” was the way she put it.

Now came the nasty part – the jab. I was unceremoniously tasked with scratching Nike behind the ears while my mom and sis all of a sudden found their watch faces hypnotically amazing. The jab itself was over in a second (Nike didn’t feel a thing) but I just had to join the vet in staring at them staring at their watches for a bit before announcing that they could look up now.

So anyway, Nike’s healthy overall, if a bit overweight. He needs to lose about a kilogram (he weighs roughly 6kg now which apparently is huge for a cat), exercise more and change his diet. How many times have we heard that before?