As some of you know .... I was not always the glowing image of animal philanthropy that I am today. I was not the bastion of unselfishness when it came to my money or my time. I have slowly grown into this role ... as I have been told that "we people" who have "made it" in life should somehow reach inside ourselves and find a charitable calling. I naturally gravitated towards animals .... because they are literally and figuratively underdogs. Here's an absolutely unvarnished, true story to illustrate my animal sainthood.
Scene: My home in Prospect, KY .... Summer ... 2000.
I am a relatively new (and entirely cerebrally frustrated beyond belief) mother of 2 very young children. I go out to my portico, where we park our cars, to play with the kids nearly every morning. For about a month, I catch glimpses of a ferrel cat that hides under my car. The moment the kids come out to play .... ZOOM ... she's gone. I decide, in my infinite boredom and frustration, to catch this cat and domesticate it.
I root around in the basement and find our old dog carrier. I place it outside, near my car, with the carrier door open. I ingeniously concoct a trap. Yeah .... I have to be honest.... it was definitely a Wile E. Coyote life moment for me. Although, I have always thought my life closely resembled a classic cartoon.
It took me a few days ... and suffice it to say there were some not so graceful Cirque de Soleil-esque moments of me hanging off the roof of my car lying"in wait" readying to slam the carrier door the minute that cat set foot in the carrier!
Finally .... Eureka! I got her! She was a timid shy little thing. She looked very young and had a bloated belly. I thought to myself .... either she has a giant case of worms or this cat's knocked up!
I make an appointment the next day with the vet at Goshen Animal Clinic. The kids and I took her into the vet with high hopes that she was preggers. My husband, of course, being the only sane one at the time, did not share in our euphoric excitement. He, in fact, was hoping that she had a giant case of worms and was being eaten viscerally from the inside out. He is really quite the animal lover, my Hot Geek Boy .... a true modern day Saint Francis, if you will.
At the Vet's office .... upon initial examination, it was discovered by the vet that, yes, indeed ... I was purportedly to become the heir-apparent of a knocked up street cat ..... and with no baby daddy in sight .... this little slut hooker cat needed a pimp momma.
The kids and I were jumping up and down in the examining room as if you'd told me we won the Kentucky State Lottery and we were going to blow the entirety of our winnings on life-size gummy bear statues of ourselves. The kids were frenzied and talk of soft baby kittens snuggling at night-night time were being thrown around willy nilly!
Suddenly, a nurse appeared with a chart and a sour puss face. She tells me abruptly .... "Mrs. Amrein ... I think the excitement was slightly premature because looking at her blood work ... this cat has Feline Immune Deficiency Syndrome".
I give her a "WTF" look as she goes on to explain ..."This FIDS is a terminal illness and is similar to AIDS in humans. It is transferable to her kittens and she will need to be put down." (Seriously ... go ahead and google it .... I'll wait .....)
Okay ... wait a minute ... what the what???? I am literally going dizzy at this point because as it turns out ... my little slut hooker cat has friggin' AIDS !!! That little hoo-ah!! (as my Bronx friends would say)
I usher the kids out of the room and sit them quietly in the lobby. I return to the examining room and while my children are crying their tiny little eyes out in the lobby ... I, myself, begin torrentially "ugly cry" bawling ... OVER A CAT THAT I HAVE HAD IN MY POSSESSION FOR LESS THAN 24 HOURS! Of course, they tell me, it's going to be put down humanely and that I am a saint for bringing her in .... blah, blah, blah ....
As I shuffle out to the lobby to collect my slobbery, glazed donut faced kids ... I pass the front desk and without skipping a beat ... they hand me a very, very, very long receipt. This receipt has every single solitary known relevant and irrelevant veterinary medical test on it ever performed in the modern world.
Those crazy bastards hit me to the tune of $850 bucks!!!!! My brain was swimming (in bile at this point) .... I was attempting to translate the medical-ese on the paper and the only thing that made sense was the very last line.
It read ..."Euthanization & Disposal .... $100.00". Well .... that just about tore it for me! (.... and here's where I diverge just slightly from my sainthood ....) I began back pedaling and distancing myself from the tragedy .... "I didn't even know this cat" I say to the stone faced receptionist ... "...it was just some stupid runaway!" ... I attempted to reason and justify my position ... that I was doing my civic duty bringing in this ferrel cat and couldn't they just give me a break????
HELL to the NO .... was pretty much her response. (hey .... I know that's urban vernacular..... but in my defense .... I am still pissed AND ... she was black AND she did do some chicken neck movements and finger wagging ... so my use of the slang isn't entirely out of context here.)
Well ... I was beside myself on how in the jeebus I was going to tell Hot Geek Boy this sad yet financially ridiculous news.
So .... I do what any self respecting wife does ..... I give him "what for" (the x-rated version) and then break the news to him that we just incurred an $850 vet bill for a pregnant AIDS cat that he definitely did not know that we owned.
He took it way better than I thought (the cat story ... not the "what for" .... although to my best recollection .... that was pretty good too). I showed him the bill and he got to the "Euthanization & Disposal" part and came utterly unglued!
He immediately called the vet office and insisted on knowing where in the hell the cat was!?
They tell him that the cat has been euthanized and is now in her eternal slumber in their Maytag Freezer.
Well that's all he needed to hear. The next morning Hot Geek Boy shows up bright and early indignantly pounding his fist on the lobby desk at the vet office demanding his frozen cat! He'll be damned if he's going to let them charge him one nickel extra for something like that! I'm sure after sensing his incredulous and exasperated attitude ... they reluctantly credit him $50 bucks for the "Disposal" end of the bargain and we are now the proud owners of one FROZEN SOLID CAT.
He tosses the aforementioned feline in the passenger seat of his car and begins his drive to work.
So off he goes ..... Hot Geek Boy and the dead AIDS infested frozen cat .... listening to NPR ..... side by side .... in rush hour traffic on their way to his office.
It dawns on him ... probably somewhere in the Starbucks Drive-Thru line ... what in the blue blazes is he going to do with a dead frozen cat????? So, he does what any self respecting southerner does ..... He tosses it unceremoniously into the dumpster behind his office! No sir .... no fancy pants backyard funeral with a coffin made of a glued on glitter macaroni decorated shoe box and kleenex for a headrest! Heck no ..... that just simply would not be our style.
Anyhoo .... I guess the moral to that little nugget is ... if you're going to go out on a limb for anybody or anything .... get 'em AIDS tested first .... either that .... or you're gonna end up holding onto the wrong end of a bag of Catsicle.
Until next time,
t-
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