Yesterday I took my middle-aged cat to the veterinarian. Going to the vet involves chasing Louie around the house, dragging him out from under the bed, and placing him in a carrier, where he promptly wails with the vehemence and soprano of a bobcat, even though he is a small tame, pampered basketball.

It is unfair for him to be in the carrier, and I agree. I do not attempt to console him, because he wouldn’t understand. I just put the strap over my shoulder, stride to the bus stop with him bouncing against my hip, and climb onto a bus with a container of unhappy cat. Inevitably someone, or a couple of someones, addresses remarks to Louie, telling him it will be all right. It will not be all right, and he knows it, but I smile weakly at the stranger, with my hand inside the carrier scratching Louie’s ears gently. The scratching keeps him from making quite as much noise.

The bus yesterday had a novice driver with a supervisor, and approximately thirty feet away from the stop where I wanted to get off, he realized he didn’t have enough space between parked vehicles to go forward. These buses are not designed to get backed up, not safely, and not by a novice. An Amazon driver was next to him, and obligingly tried to pull back, wedging even more tightly against the back of the bus. I was standing in the exit area with Louie explaining how sad he was, and I knew I was adding to the supervisor’s already considerable aggravation, as well as to Louie’s aggravation, so the moment the Amazon truck pulled back enough, I asked to be let off.

I go to a large practice that does not yet appear to be owned by venture capital but might as well be; I never know who will be treating Louie. Having survived the bus, I wait in the area reserved for cats, which is not nearly as far away from dogs as Louie would like, and eventually someone calls me back.

Louie sits in his open carrier with wide eyes. The room is silent. The tech asks me questions, which I dutifully answer. She claims he has never had blood work done, but I happen to know he has, because they pulled some of his teeth a year ago or so. I hand her a small bag with a ball of poop in it. I did not tell anyone on the bus I was carrying cat poop. They would not have been as friendly if I had.

This time, I got a young male veterinarian. He weighed Louie, felt his organs, cleaned his ears out, and said that Louie was overweight.

Of course Louie is overweight. I know that. Louie knows that. I have spent the last six months trying to reduce his intake. But Louie, though not very bright, is very determined, and what he is most determined about is that he would like to weigh 16 pounds. He knows exactly when he should be eating and how much he should eat in order to achieve that goal. Unless I leave the house between meals, he is going to wear me down.

I nodded a lot.

The veterinarian signed me up for a prescription diet food. Decades of experience have taught me that even if I buy the food, Louie will explain to me that it is not food. The veterinarian explains kindly why this is no longer true, that prescription food is better these days. I nod some more. I pay for Louie’s perfunctory exam at the counter in the front, and take a wailing cat home on a different bus, where I give him a treat and he takes a nap sleeping on top of me.

I order the prescription cat food. If it doesn’t get stolen from my front step, Louie will refuse to eat it and I will put it out front with a “Free” sign. After I order the food, I check my regular cat food supplier and see that they also have this marvelous food, but cheaper.

I have the feeling that Louie is my last cat, because I am 74 and by the time he dies I will be a good bit older and closer to not being able to take care of a cat, but meanwhile here we are.

I am certainly his last human. He was surrendered with another cat to a shelter in my city, where I saw his big serious eyes on their website and went to pick him up. He was eight years old, and had been sixteen pounds when he was surrendered, but was now down to thirteen because he was so unhappy in the shelter, caged with the other cat, whom he did not like.

I want Louie to be happy.

This is a problem, but I think it’s more of a problem for the veterinarian than it is for me. Louie will try the new food, but more importantly, he will come and lie down on top of me when I take naps, and I will hear his breathy little purr, and he will lift his head so I can scratch under his chin. And I will only make him miserable every six months or so, more often if he has to have some more teeth pulled.