Fussy Cat

My cat is twenty years old, and he's been with me since birth. He's very vocal. One summer the electricity went out during a heat wave and he made sounds I haven't heard come from a tenor.

Butch is very fussy. He will only eat food immediately after its come out of a can. When he's finished, the remaining food can sit there for days. I know, because we occasionally fight that battle of wills and more often than not I relent and open a new can. I keep some dry food out for him, but really it's for decoration. He never touches it. Lately, Butch has become fussy about his water. He needs fresh every couple of hours. He's fussiest about his litter box. He's never been a cat to bury his turds, and if there's one turd in there he'll walk around complaining until its removed. If there are two turds in his box, and he needs to make a third, he will make a deposit anywhere he damn well feels like. It's his loving way of letting me know he's being neglected.

However, he's become less fussy about his fur and at the moment its a matted mess. If you give some of the knots a tug, slabs of fur come off and expose his pink skin. So far we've cleared up the knots under his neck and along his ribcage. But there are still matted messes on his chest, stomach, lower flanks and his potty area. Some of the knots have been so uncomfortable they've effected his walking. Sometimes he complains when you try to cut them off, and sometimes he just sits and purrs.

Is this what marriage is like?