good things happen....

11-20-99

Saturdays suck. Lots of dogs go home, so I have a zillion cages to clean out. Lots of dogs come in to board, so I have to have those cages cleaned. Seems like the first thing a dog does when he comes in is piss all over the place. Even Bob, the bull mastiff with impeccable manners, peed in his cage within minutes of arriving this morning.

So there's all that pee. Those dogs that go home? Most of them need baths. I give the dogs baths. Sometimes dog owners will pay the vet just to give the dog a bath. The best time for that is Saturday morning. So I bathe dogs in between trying to clean out cages. I can't bathe them one after another, though; today I did two in a row and put them both under blow dryers and I blew a fuse in the dog ward.

Every day, after I've made the dog ward presentable, I start in on the cats. Shuffle them from one cage to another so I can clean the litter trays. Most of the kitties spread litter bits around their cages, since they don't have more than a couple square feet to move around in. I don't have a dustpan, so I just brush all the litter sand onto the floor while I'm cleaning the cages, and then I sweep the floor when I'm finished. Today Aida came in when I was half done and told me that we really can't keep the floor like this and it has to be cleaned up. I know she meant well, she just didn't realize that I was on my way to cleaning the floor up. She seemed to think I hadn't cleaned the floor in two weeks.

Anyway, the dogs were insanely noisy and I was insanely hormonal, and I cracked around 11:45. I'd hoped to be out of there early, and I got out an hour late. And I had to be back at 5, oh, was I pissed off.

Just as I was leaving the first time, at 1, I stopped and decided I really wanted to hold one of the cats. I usually get them out when I'm cleaning the cages and I pet them for a few minutes, but I had already clocked out and I just needed to hold one of the cats. I pulled out Duchess, the gorgeous, snobby tiger kitty, and I sat in one of the lobby chairs for a couple minutes. Then I put her away and started to unlock the door and leave.

Just then a man pulled up in a truck and got out, four-year-old son in tow. "Oh, are you closed?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "We just wanted to say hi to our cat who got declawed," he said. I asked him which cat was his, and he said Chappie. I just love Chappie. He's a big black and white kitty, totally cage-crazy right now; he was a little too old to be declawed and he bled a lot, so we had to keep him longer. I said, "Well, I'm really not supposed to let you in, but...." I let the man and his son pet Chappie for a few minutes. I cheered up a little bit, especially when the man asked how much it would cost to adopt the homeless kitten in the next cage.

When I finally left, I was pulling up to the main street when I saw police lights twirling up the road a way. They approached slowly, and I saw that they were heading up a procession of some sort. It turned out to be well over a hundred motorcycles. Astounding. It was raining and my car fogs up, so I had my window down. Dozens of motorcyclists waved at me as they chugged by. Some were in pairs, some were alone, some had dogs, and one couple was dressed up like Mr. and Mrs. Biker Santa Claus.

How could I stay in such an evil mood after that? I kept telling myself that neither of these great things, Chappie's family or the bikers, would have happened to me had I left on time.