The Cat Killer

“Are you a pharmacist?” the man inquired as I walked up to the ‘consultation’ section of the counter, “Yes, yes I see you are.” he concluded, looking at my nametag as I nodded affirmative in response to his question.

The gent was short, slight, balding and middle aged, and was holding about a half-dozen small boxes of over-the-counter remedies in his hands.

“I have a cat,” the man stated, “that needs to be put down, and I cannot afford to pay the vet to do it. What medication can I give my cat to put it down? You must know.”

I was rather taken aback by the request, and stated truthfully, “Veterinary medicine is outside of my realm of knowledge. I have no idea.”

“Well,” said the man, not to be detered that easily, “What would kill, for instance, a 180 lb man? Certainly the same thing would kill a cat...”

“The only potentially quick and easy lethal medicines (for humans, anyway) that I know of require a prescription.” I anwered, “and you obviously can’t get your hands on those. I don’t know what to tell you.”

At that the cat-killer thankfully departed.

I marveled to my technician (who had overheard the conversation) that this was the first time in my many years as a pharmacist that anyone had ever asked me a question like that, whereupon we bandied about ideas for dispatching the unfortuate feline.

Her opinion was that a bullet would be the easiest way, and I said absent the access to a gun I might choose to stick the poor thing into a sack with some heavy rocks and throw it into the Saco river.

It occured to me, quite a few minutes after the cat owner left, that one could probably kill it quite effectively with an overdose of injected insulin. The insulin, syringes and needles would, after all, not require a prescription. Not that I would have suggested it to him, though...
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