I’m afraid this blog
is straying further from its original intent than usual. It’s not that I am no longer just as
interested in music, it’s just that I have written about most of my heroes,
sometimes twice or more, and repetition might become a mite boring.
Instead, let’s
consider pets and vets. [Sensibility
alert: this piece will mention
unmentionables, and make use of ‘v’ words and even the ‘c’ word (although not
the ‘c’ word you probably anticipate).]
Our 11-year-old cat
had a problem in an intimate area.
Suffice it to say she was sitting down gingerly and with
reluctance. We decided to pay our vet to
snap on some disposable gloves.
Now, although our vets
and their receptionists and assistants are fine, their premises have been and
remain godawful. Yes, they are perfectly
clean and tidy etc., but they freak our cats out in anticipation from the
moment we ram them into the animal carriers;
and I hate them too. For a start,
they have an electronic bell that sounds whenever the door is held open, and it
sounds like ‘Avon calling’. Actually,
more like ‘Avon shouting’. It’s just so
slightly off pitch that you could easily imagine it being played to Prometheus,
as he waits for the eagle to swoop down and perform internal surgery without
benefit of anaesthetic.
Also, all pet owners
have to wait in the same area. You’ve
never seen fear, until you’ve seen a caged tabby (that has hitherto received
nothing more than a mild reproof for clawing the curtains) staring up into the
eyes of an Irish wolfhound that has come
in to have its molars cleaned of lingering bone fragments from Ocado drivers.
So while the pets work
each other up into hysteria, they make us wait. (“The first thing you learn is, you always
have to wait.” – slight muso reference, there.)
It’s like the dentist’s; but, unlike toddlers, you can’t distract
animals with the toy collection or the book shelf. Oh yes, there’s a water bowl for dogs, but no
cat would ever use a public drinking place, and having a St. Bernard lap at a
bowl near your cage simply means, to a cat; “I am lubricating my jaws to make
it easier to eat you alive, slowly, when your owners (who have suddenly decided
to torture you for no reason) drag you out of that box. Welcome to hell, pussycat.”
OK, one of the
examination rooms at our vet’s practice has (in addition to the normal
examination table, weighing scale, wall cupboard full of exciting recreational
drugs and inevitable computer terminal that the vet pecks at with no
discernible result other than to inflate the consultation time) a window in the
ceiling with a curved dome. I don’t know
what it is about this (actually, having stared at it myself, I am beginning to
get an idea) but when our cats see it, they go totally tharn. It’s worse in winter evenings, when it’s black
and you can see distorted reflections in it.
If you’re a sci-fi buff, then the easiest way for me to describe it is
as the Blind Spot which replaces windows when the hyperdrive is turned on, in
Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ and ‘Known Space’ novels. (Damn good classic hard
science fiction, but I digress.)
After all that, having
devices inserted into your orifices probably pales into insignificance. Anyway, you’re still waiting for the St
Bernard to reappear and chew you slowly from the paws up.
Look, our poor cat
experienced medically-induced trauma, and it was actually worse than I have
said. I wasn’t exaggerating for comic
effect, this time. The lampshade cat
collar came off within an hour of our bringing her home. They must know that no real cat would
tolerate that stuff.
[Note to readers who
like cats; we are rigorously pursuing
every other item of the treatment regime.
The cat is now stress-free and in recovery mode. If you hate cats, then disregard this ……
imagine I have nailed the cat to the side of the shed, and that carrion crows
are gathering.]
All this is by the
by. The incident that prompted me to
write didn’t feature us or our pets at all.
Before us in the
waiting room was a lady in her late seventies or eighties, with a bad limp and
a walking stick. I deduced that she had
no partner or carer; I speculated
further that she had no children, otherwise they might have been present to
help her. Although she may have been
married, she was just a singleton elderly female, of whom there are many. She seemed composed, and was even smiling on
the small yappy dogs that other owners brought in during our wait. She was waiting for her bitch, which had been
receiving treatment. It was a large but
not huge dog, some kind of greyhound maybe, which had been fitted with a
lampshade collar. It was also elderly
and grey haired, and evidently nervous.
They have a talkdown
procedure at this vet’s, where a young lady comes out and explains the meds and
the procedures all over again, before eventually getting to the whopping size
of the bill. Maybe they do this to
prevent arguments, because people are reluctant to make a fuss in front of
others.
Anyway, the young lady
was gaily explaining that the dog’s distressing problem stemmed from an infection
of her vagina. A little frisson went
round the room. She handed over some
antibiotics to put in the dog’s food, and then a tube of gel and some gloves,
explaining gaily that this was to be applied twice daily to the vulva. The frisson went round the other way, and
someone of a sensitive nature fainted.
She then gaily advised the owner that she should just generally monitor
the dog’s chuff. Which was the first
time I have ever heard the word used in real life.
Look, I don’t
underestimate the elderly, and this owner may have been a scrub nurse or a
mortician at some point in her life. But
she didn’t look like that, and it is quite possible that her life prior to that
moment had included nothing much more distasteful than a soiled doily.
I’m not sure what
point I’m making. I’m not saying that I
personally am worried about the naming of parts or discussion of such
matters; at my time of life it takes a
lot to shock me. I think I’m saying that
intimate stuff like this, even when we’re talking about animals, should not be
done in a public waiting room, as a routine measure.
And that ownership of
a pet means more than just buying them food, and toys they never play with.
I was moved to write
about this, and yes, if I was a better writer or thinker I could surely enlarge
this to something more significant to the cosmos. But after having reported the anecdote, I’m
going to stop here.
