Life has changed a lot since the days of Ponce de Leon.
Ask Grandma.
All I had to do was go online and the next day Amazon Prime delivered the fountain of youth, right here, to the black hole just outside Harmony Grove.
To be honest, I thought I had ordered a regular old fashioned, pet bubbler.
Per the vet, Tuna, our resident bully, is supposed to cut back on cat treats and increase his water intake.
However Tuna does not want to lay off any snacks and he refuses to even try a morsel of moist food to help out with his fluids. Nor does he allow any gravy to be mixed in with his hard as rock, filet mignon nuggets.
He does not care about any kind of health issues out in his future.
Tuna lives for the moment.
I totally get it. I recall rubbing baby oil all over my teen body before soaking up the sun and blowing smoke rings into the air.
I wasn't worried.
My plan was to mend my ways when I became an adult and not a minute before.
But then I grew up and picked up more bad habits and learned that it was not that easy to quit those cigarettes and that wrinkles cannot just be pressed out of skin, even with the steam on.
While it is too late for Millie Noe to fix her past, how could she help her furry kid in the tuxedo from self destruction?
All her words and pointing out fine print warnings would not do.
Tuna was cut from the same cloth as she.
That is why a fountain was delivered to their front porch.
As long as Tuna believes that it is his idea to drink from a bubbling brew, problem solved.
I took the parts out of the package, put them together, filled the basin from the tap and plugged it in.
A couple hours later, Tuna waltzed in through the kitchen door, finished with his morning pillaging. He began to search the house for Grandma Meow Moses, so that he could scare the bejesus out of her before curling up for a nap.
He strutted his way toward, "Whoa! What is that?" He slammed on his brakes, backed up and walked over to investigate the new object in his castle.
Tuna's googly eyes were extra googly as he examined the alien bubbler underneath the bookcase.
"Hmmmm," he muttered. "Must be some sort of trickery."
And then he pranced his way over to the basket of towels in the bathroom, climbed in and fell asleep.
I was not surprised.
I knew that it would take time and that there could be no coercing.
Eventually, he would accidentally take one sip and he would be hooked for life and then get an A on his score card at the vet clinic.
Unless of course he steps on their scale.
"It is all muscle is what we will tell them."
Well, as long as Tuna was out cold in the towels, I closed the door to the bathroom and invited Grandma up from her assisted living apartment for a visit.
The fuzzy looking slipper in pearls waddled up the steps and headed straight to her daily dose of milk set out on the stairs.
And then she wandered around the house looking for the perfect spot to get back to napping and, "Whoa!"
She stopped suddenly.
"What is that?"
Her big green eyes sparkled as she cautiously made her way over to the contraption under the bookcase.
Without hesitation she stuck her face into the stream of water and took a drink.
"Oh my God!" she screamed. "This is amazing!"
Grandma then guzzled the running water as long as she could stand there.
This all took place more than a month ago.
Since then Grandma has been sprinting and.
Well, okay. Sprinting is a relative term. She is nineteen years old for Christ's sake.
Let us just say that Grandma has a new bounce in her step which can be directly attributed to the fountain of youth.
You see, nothing scares a little old lady who has figured out how to live more than nine lives in each of her nine lives.
Hang on a second. My sister is yelling something.
"Oh."
She wants to know what ever happened with Tuna.
"I know Louisa. Jeez. Just give me a minute!"
Tuna will have nothing to do with it.
He is with his bowl of stale water, like my sweet Sven is with his old flip phone.
Nothing anyone can do.
