kitty crack

I have a 14-year-old cat named Charlie. I know it 's a cliche - women have cats, men have dogs. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. It's just that living in small apartments and working long hours don't go well with dog ownership. You can leave food, water and a litter box and a cat will be just fine. Thankfully, David is also an animal person. I think Charlie looks forward to seeing him more than just about any person on earth.
When I got divorced, I ended up with 3 cats - 2 alpha females and Charlie. The girls were best friends and generally plotted together to made his life a living hell on earth.
They have both since passed, and Charlie is revelling in being the King of the Castle. First at the food dish! First at the litter box! Gets to sleep anywhere he wants! Undivided human attention! He doesn't miss the girls one bit.
I happened to be at Shop 'n Save one day and saw a new kind of cat food on sale for dirt cheap. It was supposed to look just like real tuna. The packaging even looked like those new tuna pouches (one of the greatest inventions of all time, in my opinion). Charlie was looking a little scrawny - they tend to lose weight as they get older (unfortunately, only cats do this) - so I thought "What the hell."
Turns out I opened Pandora's pouch.
The food was disgusting looking - sort of like white flakes in V8 juice jello - but easy to squeeze out of the handy-dandy pouch, so I started throwing some in his food bowl when I got up in the morning. It only took him a day or so to figure that out. The third day he was standing on my chest at 6:30 in the morning, meowing in my face. Not a gentle meow, either. This meow meant "Get up, lazy ass! I'm HUNGRY! I need my Whiskas fix NOW!"
I tried to make a game of it by turning him into Lassie.
Charlie: MEOW!
Me: What's that?
Charlie: MEOW!
Me: Timmy's in the barn?
Charlie: MEOW!
Me: And the barn's on fire?
Charlie: MEOW!
That eventually wore thin.
I honestly don't know what they put in that stuff. David said, "They put sugar in it." I said, "They put crack in it." We decided it must be sugar and crack. Or maybe sugared crack. Or crack with real sugar flavor.
David walked in this morning as Charlie was standing on my chest, meowing in my face. He said, "Oh, no." I said, "Yeah - he's got that ol' Whiskas monkey on his back."
Now he goes crazy whenever I walk into the kitchen any time of day or night. And he doesn't look any heavier.
I wonder if there's such a thing as cat rehab?