Who's the Boss?

Ouch, bad title. Even worse show.
The ongoing journey of discovery that is unemployment comes with pitstops marked, "Now Who's Really in Charge?" and "Is This the Right Path?" It is coincidence that these pitstops sound like self-help books.
On that first one, I'm recognizing something that was even true before I got laid off, and is more true now: My spot in house pecking order is third.
This would be good if this were a home for wayward boys, third would probably be up there with the headmaster and the cook or something. Instead, in this house, it's dead last.
That my fiancee outranks me is understandable. She works, her name is on the mortgage, and even if all that weren't true, she'd outrank me just on the basis of the stuffed peppers she made awhile back.
Coming in also above me, though, is the cat.
Sassy is a generally good cat, if only slightly less vocal than a skipping CD of a boys' choir. If I knew cat, we'd have conversations worthy of university programming.
As it is, I've figured out that most of her cries at me can be translated in one of three ways:
1) Let me outside, so that I can wander the backyard and perhaps pick up an illness.
2) Feed me. Not that cat food garbage, give me some chicken.
3) Really, as humans go, you're pathetic, right? Scratch me behind the ears and show your subservience.
And I dutifully comply. Because like a good mother, Sassy uses the strategy that if it's worth saying once, it's worth saying to the point of insanity in all listeners.
Lately, we noticed -- more like my fiancee noticed, really -- that Sassy was sneezing a lot. So the blanket she sleeps on was washed, the rug was vacuumed again, shelves were dusted, and there was close examination of whether there was any perceived leakage from the eyes, like a Virgin Mary statue.
Eventually, the solution was determined: Punt and take her to the vet. A task that fell to the person who can only hit "refresh" so often on CNN.com anyhow: Me.
Getting Sassy to the vet was easy, but not without difficulty. Getting her first into the cat carrier and then out of it at the vet's office was a chore, and if she had front claws there probably would've been side trips to a blood bank, for pickup and/or delivery.
(And she was declawed before my fiancee got her, so bugger off, PETA.)
But she was surprisingly docile at the vet, lying placidly on the examining table, and giving me little headbutts of affection as I reassured her. These headbutts were a good way to remind me that her breath stinks.
The vet's diagnosis: Eh, maybe a cold. Here, give her some of this stuff. And don't let her outside.
He also gave her a shot, which seemed to perk up her demeanor markedly. By this I mean that she meowed even more than usual when we got home, and just to make me paranoid, did so in different keys.
Man, if I ever go back to working, she's going to be mad at me...