I don’t believe I’ve mentioned Speedbump before. (EDIT: yes, I did, but before he was so named). After I came back from my trip and found that Marvin was no more, one of the outside farmcats (a son of One-Eye) made his presence known whenever I went outside: he turned himself into a hazard to navigation by constantly being underfoot whenever I went outside for anything. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he managed to work his way indoors a few weeks back, where he has been on probation, seeing how he interacts with the other cats. While he’s a bit of a knucklehead, he’s basically well behaved.
The last few days he’s been vocally complaining a *lot* and seemed to have an itchy ear, so today I took him to the vet to get his shots and a checkup. Turns out there was a reason for the itchy ear… down in it next to the eardrum he had a big ol’ tick chawin’ away on him.
gaaaaahhhhhhrhhhrrrhhhhaaaaaccchchhchchc.
In the several hours since it was removed, he has seemed less complainy, so I’m guessing that was the source of his discomfort.
Interestingly, when the vet went to poke the back of his neck with a needle, the needle wouldn’t actually penetrate. Damn thing bent. Had to give him his shots a little of-axis… seems he’s got a patch of bulletproof skin.