Bruno's Op

Sam woke me up at 6am, he and Bruno were coming back from downstairs. “Wake up.” We all had to get up. Bruno was having airway surgery, a preventative procedure, pretty much. We had to head off to the vet as soon as we could. The vet opened at 7am.

7am. We left home, heading to [name of suburb], across town.

It was a glorious morning, down the highway in the Peugeot, windows open, 24 degrees, road practically empty. My favourite morning ever, just perfect. The Peugeot roared to life and accelerated beautifully from every set of lights. The highway was so empty it was like our own race track. A Subaru WRX, a VW Golf GTI and a Volkswagen Polo GTI, both white, were keeping up with us. It was fun. I felt alive. Good driving more so than fast driving, although fast too. We’re all too namby pamby, yes sir, three bags full, just ripe to be made a police state, to drive over 40 fuken kph now-days. Sometimes it is nice to let go, live a little, hair down, engines reving.

7.35am. We left Bruno at the vet, the nurse took him by his lead and he followed obediently. He didn’t look back.

We had to get a new quote, as Bruno wasn’t being de-sexed and there was a couple of scans we weren’t having done from the original quote. $235 for the former and $380 for the latter, off a quote of $2400. The new quote only dropped off $100, the reason being that in the original quote, arguably “the standard deal”, the aesthetic had been discounted, in the new quote it was not discounted, so that put the price up. The surgeon was asked to call us and explain. He gave the same explanation, in his best business like tone, and it made no real sense. The discounted aesthetic was just a decision they made, it bore no relation to what aesthetic was used. Presumably, Bruno was only going to be put to sleep once, no matter which quote we accepted.

My response to the surgeon was, “Well, that makes no sense to me at all, roll of the eyes, what could we do, if that is what the price is, okay.” What could I say? He said it had all been explained to me, but the explanation I got wasn’t that, not that at all. I won’t bore you with the details now.

Bruno would be ready to be picked up early in the afternoon.

9am. We’re at [name of cafe] having breakfast with Buddy. Neighbour, Jackson Wag stopped by, saying he couldn’t stay otherwise he’d have an exploding coffee pot situation at home, and then he stayed anyway. Kodak and his owner, also stopped for a chat, but the fact we were eating by then hurried them away again. Kodak’s owner is impossibly cool, I’m sure we all wished we were as cool as he. The nice lady from over the road wanted to know where the baby was? And a puppy called Tully, who Buddy sniffed encouragingly, stopped to eat at the next table.

‘Good puppy, well done,’ was Bud’s attitude.

It was lovely sitting out in the fresh morning air and the sunshine before the day got too hot. It was predicted to be 43 degrees today. It was nice to be out in it before it got to that. Sure.