‘Oh yes it is….’
‘Oh noooo it’s not….’
‘Oh yes it IS….’
‘Oh nooooo it’s NOT…’
It’s just that my life isn’t all about virginity loss. Particularly at this time of year. As my eyes go slowly square and my stomach gently rounds, my life revolves around re-runs of ‘Batteries Not Included’ (love it), ‘Titanic’ (love it more), and ‘Mission Impossible’ (not bothered). I also enjoy the odd trip to the vets. Not the money aspect. Nope, I could do without a whopping seventy-five pound bill but it is almost worth it for the pantomime performance that is….the local vets.
There is little point in trying to get away with a dull trip. It simply doesn’t happen. There’s too much going on. The pets that look like people! The drama! The embarrassing accidents! If you want to learn anything about life, death, and frequently yourself, just go and hang out at your local veterinarian’s. My most recent visit is a case in point.
It was the Saturday morning before Christmas and on the face of it, I was there for an annual ‘booster’ injection. In reality it is just a very expensive manicure for a cat with stupidly sharp claws. ‘Shall I give his nails a little clip while he’s here?’ Ben always says.
I’d like to see you try, I think to myself as three staff members attempt to wrestle six kilos of angry cat to the ground and curtail those claws. It never happens. He didn’t earn the name Edward Scissorhands for nothing. Hey ho, all this was all to come as I seated myself next to a gentleman of eastern European extraction. I know this because he was talking to his tall son in a Russian accent.
‘Go. Go. Fetch coffee. I will be fine here’, he said as the young man bent to fit his frame through a door that now looked like something from Alice in Wonderland and set forth into the day. Portly, rain-coated and elderly, my new neighbour now bent down to fuss with the contents of his basket. He didn’t look like a pet owner and that’s what I love about the vet’s. I love the way that the most innocuous looking characters, people that would normally cut you up in their cars or jump the bus queue are reduced to a big sappy heap of sentimentality when it comes to their pets.
Today was no exception. A long low bleat came from below as the old man extracted an equally old cat from a white wire basket. The noise was patient but persistent. ‘I don’t feel well’, it seemed to say. ‘I really wouldn’t bother making all this fuss if I felt fine’.
‘There now Mushi’, said the man as he hugged a tattered old cat to his chest. ‘Don’t worry now. Everything will be ok.’ One look at Mushi told me this wasn’t the case. I am no expert, but a cat with a tongue slung sideways out of its mouth is not in good shape. Mushi might be ‘going home’, but not to the one he arrived from.
Slowly my heart began to crack in two. ‘Come back here Son’, I thought. ‘Why did you leave your father to fetch coffee? Come back and help. You’re young. He’s old. Mushi is all he has’. I pictured the old man leaving the vets with an empty basket and I slunk further down into my seat. I wonder if the man lives near his son or is Mushi the only real friend he has in the world?
The call came. ‘Mr Ivanov, you can bring Mushi through now’. No one said a word but the silence said it all. Eyes flickered familiar thoughts around the room. This is the day that every pet owner dreads. Let it be when we are young and fit, not old and lonely. Let it be quick and painless, not drawn out and dramatic. Some time later, a tear stained assistant emerged from the room.
Not long after, my less theatrical turn arrived. As the staff fought to ‘organize’ my spitting companion, I asked the vet, ‘How do you do this job? I thought my heart would break when the old Russian man shuffled into your room with his sick cat’.
‘Its not easy Kate’, he said. ‘And it gets harder as I get older. But you have to do the best thing for the animal. Its not fair to keep a sick animal alive’.
‘I know’. I said. ‘But I can’t bear the thought of that old man going home alone without his pet and feeling sad’.
‘Oh, you don’t need to feel so bad’, said Ben. I’ve known this family for a long time and that man has a wife waiting for him at home, he’ll be fine. He also has a girlfriend, but you didn’t hear that from me’.
Well blow me down with a feather. I didn’t see that one coming. You’re right, as I watched the old man leave the vets that afternoon with an empty basket and the tall son who finally arrived back with two cups of coffee, I didn’t have to fight the urge to drive him to the local refuge and purchase him a pet with my own money.
So what’s the point of this post? I have no idea. My brain has turned to mush and I couldn’t think of an ending to this story if my life depended on it. But try this for size. As we step into 2008, we can cat-astrophize until the cows come home, but the truth is often simpler, happier and far less dramatic than we like to imagine.
Happy New Year y’all!
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