Eliot suffered his first lesson in karma tonight when one of his chipmunk catches bit him on the eye. I learned another lesson in karma hanging out at the all-night emergency veterinary clinic.

Following his neutering, the doc told me to keep Eliot in the house for a week while he healed. A week! Eliot loves going outside - he's an outside cat - and I knew he would be miserable cooped up in the house for a full week. But I kept him inside as instructed and allowed him to heal on Wednesday and Thursday. He also remained indoors all day Friday, a beautiful summer-like day, at least until I got home from work and decided to allow him out for the few remaining hours of the day as a reward for staying inside for so long.

He freely came in and went back out several times, but after last weekend, I now know the sound of his bringing a live animal into the house with him. So when he came in shortly after dark without announcing himself with his customary meows and I heard the squeaks of a small mammal in distress, I knew exactly what he was up to. First time outside since last weekend's adventures, and right off the bat he's bringing critters back in with him.

They were once again hunkered down back in the meditation room, the chipmunk taking refuge behind the kitty-litter box (it's my home zendo , but Eliot's bathroom). I used a broom to sweep the chipmunk out the back door and just like last weekend, Eliot immediately followed. He came back inside a half hour or so later without any creatures in his mouth, but panting and out of breath. The chipmunk must have given him a real run for his money. I let Eliot trot off to one of his many little retreats around the house to recover.

But when he approached me later, he was clearly out of sorts. I could tell something was wrong and then I saw that his left eye was swollen shut and the surrounding skin was bright red. As I examined him, it was clear he was in real pain. Some fluid was running out the corner of his puffed up eye and he was clearly frightened, not understanding what was happening to him. I could only assume that the chipmunk had bitten him on the eye in an understandable attempt to escape.

By this time, it was 10 at night, and his vet's office had closed four hours ago and wasn't open again until Monday morning. I wasn't going to wait until then - the swelling was getting worse and his whole left face was getting puffy. I called one neighborhood vet after another, getting a voice mail announcement each time about their office hours - some were open on some Saturdays for at least a few hours, but none could take us there and then. I wasn't sure how much harm and suffering would occur if I didn't get him looked at that night.

On about my third call, I got an announcement stating that if this were an emergency I should contact Georgia Veterinary Specialists. I looked them up on line and saw that they had a 24-hour emergency clinic, even if it were a 15-mile drive away.

Eliot doesn't like riding in a car even when he's healthy and the longest drive he's suffered to date has been all of two miles; he was absolutely miserable riding in his little cat carrier for 20 minutes with his eye swollen shut. He was crying and carrying on the whole time, even while I was trying to explain to him how chipmunks weren't toys to be played with but actual sentient beings just like him. But I can't blame him for chasing chipmunks as after all, that's a cat's predatory nature - he's just functioning as designed, even if it's not always to my liking. We can't blame the chipmunk either for acting out of it's nature and trying to defend itself with the limited means at its disposal. And I can't blame myself for being irritable driving around town at 10.30 at night with a whiney cat, looking for some all-night clinic at a location not convenient to me, thinking how this wasn't how I had planned to spend my Friday night.

When I found the clinic, they were pretty good - they didn't keep us waiting for too long and soon I had a veterinarian looking at Eliot's eye. Eliot kept squirming and was given a sedative for the pain and for his nerves. The vet found the bite mark on his eyelid (fortunately it missed the eyeball itself), cleaned the wound, and gave him some meds. The swelling had started to go down already, but Eliot still looked like Rocky Balboa after a losing fight.

As the clinic was filling our prescriptions and totaling our bill ($177.50), I sat in the waiting room next to a man who had just had his dog put down, and was suffering the ironic indignity of waiting to be presented with the tab while still in his grief. This certainly wasn't how he had planned to spend his Friday night. It reminded me that for all of my imagined inconveniences, things could have been much worse.

We got home by 12:30. Eliot was still woozy from the sedatives but more affectionate than I've ever seen him before - he couldn't get enough petting and snuggling. I think he was happy to be home and glad that the ordeal was over, but I also think he understood and was appreciative that I had taken care of him in his suffering. Any lingering resentment about the way the evening turned out melted away.

His eye is still swollen up, although not as bad as before, and he was prescribed a week's regime of antibiotics. He's looking a little worse for all of his recent wear and tear - the swollen eye, the fresh castration scar, the still-missing fur on his back from scratching off the flea medicine. He's making me look like the world's worst pet owner, but I'm doing the best that I can. For what it's worth, for at least the next week while he's going through his antibiotics regime, he's definitely going to be an indoors cat, no matter how nice it is outside.

Hopefully, he's learned a lesson about chipmunks and other prey - that they can and will bite back. And after all, the whole idea of having a domesticated cat in your home is to keep rodents out, not to have it bring them into your house. The karmic consequences of his behavior are evident on his swollen face.