7.20am. I get up and hop straight into the shower to get ready to leave for our 9am vet appointment. It, actually, feels weird getting out of bed and getting straight into the shower, as I haven’t done it for so long, well, since 18th March 2020.
I make porridge and coffee. I sign into work to see if there was a pile on of work yesterday afternoon while I was at the Xmas party? There wasn’t.
8am. I get ready to go to the vet. Sam does too. After the worry of Buddy’s injury, and the problem of scheduling, and the problem of, actually, getting an appointment with the vet now a days, here we were, ready to go.
8.20am. We leave for [name of suburb where the vet is]. (We travel a fair way to the vet) Bruno comes too, because he doesn’t want to miss out.
You going out in the car? His face says.
“Yes, we are,” I say.
I’m coming too then, say his widening eyes.
“You think so, do you?”
Him heading straight out to the car speaks volumes.
We buy petrol on the way at the cheap servo cnr Alexander Parade and Nicholson Street. We don’t really need it, I’m hardly driving anywhere these days, but when you are passing the cheapest servo in the area, it seems stupid not to. We have plenty of time. I think I put $40 in the car, but when I go to pay it was 40 litres @ $65. Stupid me. That is like a rookie mistake. I wonder what the attendant thought as I stood looking at him open mouthed. momentarily?
9am. We’re at the vet. Right on time. (Why is it the client must arrive on time, but the professional can be as late as they like? I have never understood that? There is that Seinfeld episode, of course.)
9.25am. We’re still sitting in the waiting room, waiting. Grrrrr! You’d think I’d be far more concerned that the lateness of the vet could potentially derail my well timed plans, and while I am a little anxious, I am not really. Fuck it. You’ve got to love working from home, remembering I have already done 3 ½ hours. (Oh, yesterday, I have 3 ½ hours in the bank from yesterday)
Finally, they call Buddy Fletcher, but they say they can only have one person in with the vet at one time, so Bruno and I wait in the waiting room. (Not sure why when all the restrictions are off on all other aspects of life, but who am I to argue?)
I don’t get to see our handsome vet. (It is not the reason we come to this vet, it’s not, just a happy circumstance)
Bruno sits in the middle of the walkway gazing intently toward the door through which Sam and Buddy had disappeared. He looks adorable with his wrinkles of concern across his forehead, so much so that one of the vet nurses comments, something about an adorable face.
There is a growly Jack Russell whose owner, with thick legs in tiny black running shorts, is trying to keep quiet. A black lab. Two people with identical dogs which they confer about. “Shih tzu Pomeranian cross?” the fat, hard faced Greek woman in a tight black track suit and an ill fitting wig (clearly) asks the other owner. (you might want to ease up on the cannoli’s is all I can think) A lesbian with a greyhound. And an old bloke with an equally ancient cocker spaniel, clearly, they were pups together.
A woman comes in to a waiting room of dogs with her cat. She says to the receptionist. “My son has my other cat in the car, can he bring it in now?”
The receptionist agrees.
“Can we take them in together?”
The receptionist agrees.
“I’ll call my son to bring the cat in.”
The receptionist agrees.
The woman sits at the far end of the waiting room and calls her son.
A few moments later the most handsome 20 something year old comes in carrying a cat box. Long hair in a pony tail, t-shirt and shorts, with the most gorgeous legs. I naturally go to turn for my eyes to follow him, but I stop myself. Don’t turn and look, I tell myself.
So, Buddy doesn’t have a major kneecap malfunction, or a torn ACL, for that matter, probably just a minor torn/strained muscle, nothing major because our handsome vet can’t feel any looseness, although he does say Buddy’s knee is swollen, but nothing to really worry about. Here are some pills, don’t take him for a walk for a week.
10.30am. We’re heading down busy Sydney Road to Barclay Square to pick up a game for Sam. There is heavy traffic. Oh, you know, some dweeb going slow, scared of a tram, or some such fucking thing, and all the rest of the morons just gather behind like so much drift wood. I zip around a truck that has pulled out of a side street in front of me because I can’t see what is going on from behind it and then I slide passed a bunch of cars in front of it, but one of the losers speeds up and won’t let me back in, keeps right next to me so I can’t possible join the queue. So, I slipped further down the left lane I carved out and I thwacked my left hand mirror on some poor saps parked car’s mirror. Oops. My poor left hand rear vision mirror, how many times have banged it on another rear vison mirror when I have been slipping through? Three? Four? Click. Click. Click. (They are hinged though, so there would be no damage done) (Grimace. I think)
We park around the back of Barclay Square. Some chick, all decked out in black active wear, is packing stuff into the back of her Mercedes, while talking on the phone. Sam asks her if she is going, but she just turns her back on him, as though he doesn’t exist. I back up to ask again, but she has finished packing her car and she closes the hatch and walks away still talking on the phone. She walks to the end of the isle and stands there talking on her phone. (I get the distinct impressing she is avoiding us. Some people, who knows?) (“Like seriously, there are these people who are like trying to get me to move, like, who do some people think they are?”)
But immediately a woman in a nurse’s uniform comes across the road way and indicates immediately she is going, 4 cars down from Miss Chatty on the phone. She pulls out a short time later in her Subaru.
Buddy and Bruno and I stand in the doorway to the shopping centre while Sam is inside.
A disabled boy reaches out slowly and attempts to pat Bruno. I push Bruno closer to the guy so he can touch Bruno’s fur. The boy smiles. Buddy moves in for a pat also. The boy smiles ever more. It is adorable.
We’re home at 11.11am. Boris had messaged me at 10.10am. to say she had finished going through everything. I get straight into finishing everything off.
Buddy heads to his bed and lies down.
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