Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Maude Rides the Short Bus

For as long as I can remember, whenever I share a story of moderate misfortune / infinite craziness, friends and family generally respond with some variation of the following:

"Only you."

I hear it everytime I talk about someone who ran into me on the train; every unusual illness or life-altering traffic jam. Essentially, my life goes a little like this: if it's weird. And it's unlikely to happen (though not entirely impossible)... there's a good chance it will happen to me. I've long accepted this fact, and little by little I've also come to realize that, whenever I bemoan a situation... it gets worse.

It's as if there's some cosmic force out there that demands I handle the punches with a smile; and while this is generally the case, karma bites me in the derriere if I register the least bit of a complaint.

Example: the first day/night of camping, Washington and I were rather displeased with our neighbors: the hyperactive 9-year-old and the screaming infant didn't make for good "peace and quiet." We didn't think it could get any worse.

The next night, we battled with a group of drunks who spoke at the top of their lungs just a few feet away from our tent. We were miserable... much more so than we had been the previous night.

In short: I acknowledged on night one that we couldn't possibly have worse neighbors. But on day two... we did. And as if to further validate my status as a bad luck charm: a 20 minute walk revealed to us that every other section of the campground was completely quiet.

This happens often, and you'd think I'd learn my lesson... But I don't. So when I returned home from vacation with a hideously long "To Do" list, I barely knew where to begin. Laundry. Buy car. Shop for car. Sleep. Call about auto insurance. Maude's distemper booster. Sleep. Upload photos. Edit photos. Pay bills. Groceries. Sleep. Transfer title of old car. Update blogger. Catch up on e-mail. Balance check book.

The list went on. And on. And on. And when I went to work, I discovered that rather than have someone step in during my absence, a backlog of work was left on my desk. So the stress level at work has been on a similar climb.

But I knew one thing, at least: this past weekend was to be dedicated to car shopping. For reasons too boring to explain, I needed to get a new car this weekend... or take care of a load of paperwork on my old one. I'd saved up the money for a decent down payment, and a few car companies were offering 0% financing (all set to expire July 31, of course). So this was to be *the* weekend where I upgraded to a car with air conditionining AND windows that actually worked.

The cosmos had different plans. And I suspect it had something to do with me stressing about how, on earth, I'd ever get everything done.

Suffice it to say my weekend centered around Maude. Or, to put it more simply:



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Yes, that's right. Maude had emergency surgery this past weekend. Sometime Friday afternoon she decided, for reason's I'll never understand, that it'd be a good idea to eat a ponytail holder. Now, prior to this, I'd never heard of cats eating non-food items (not to mention, I don't even know where she found the holder!). But, to quote Maude's vet: "Most cats don't chew things. Some cats do. Yours does."

Maude is like a dog in this regard; I even had to spray "Bitter Yuck" on electrical cords to keep her away from those. But there are some benefits to having a cat-dog, as well: Maude is always waiting on me when I get home from work. She wants to be picked up and held for a bit, in fact, before she'll start playing. She's definitely not the distant sort of cat that views humans solely as food-givers.

That's why I knew something was wrong Friday when I returned home from work, and Maude cried pitifully when I picked her up. Several minutes later, and she was vomiting half a hair band on the floor.

Which begged the question: where was the other half?

But rather than bore you with the details of my Friday... my Saturday... and my Sunday, here's the Cliff Notes version:

Friday night was spent at an emergency animal hospital. Saturday was spent at Maude's actual vet (I got two hours of car shopping in before the vet called with the dreaded news). Sunday was spent at Maude's bed side, tending to a cat who was so sore, she couldn't move to go to the litter box.

And so I say again:



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Or to put it more simply:



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And as frustrated as that makes me, when I was driving home in 110 F weather today in my 10-year-old car — in a car whose air conditioner hasn't worked for years, and whose passenger side window no longer rolls down — I laughed as my sweat-drenched shirt clung desperately to my back.

Nearly everything remained on my initial "To Do" list — it had gotten much longer, in fact. And yet — as miserable as I was breathing in the uncomfortably hot air, worrying about getting home to Maude in time to give her the scheduled kitty morphine fix — I couldn't help but find solace in those universal words of comfort:

"It could've been worse."


Epilogue
I'm posting this entry four days after I began writing it; in that time, I've since learned that one of Maude's brothers was hospitalized this week for eating some sort of cat toy / carpet contraption. Apparently, this unfortunate eating "habit" is genetic. No word yet as to whether or not he'll also require surgery.

Also, a shout-out to Washington, who spent much of last weekend helping me look after Maude.


Photo of Honda Civic, while manipulated by me, was borrowed from Edmunds.

12 comments:

XOXO said...

It's true to those nay sayers that think the phrase "only you" is just being pessimistic. I used to say that my mom always had a story of someone in particular that an urban legend has happened to (ex. poking your eye out, crossing your eyes and making them stick, etc..{I promise the list goes on and on}) Now, regretably, I realize that I AM just like my mom. I know someone who has had all kinds of things happen to her that you "would not believe."

Thanks Galaxy, for making me more and more like my mom!!

P.S. A long time ago Garfield taught me you should never ask what's next.

Unacademic Advisor said...

While I, too, have been known to chortle and utter that two-word phrase regarding your Nevillian mishaps, I confess that I suffer from a similar malady. That is, whenever I have many things to do or anything important to do, something unforseen will crop up to interfere. Although my difficulties are rarely as... erm... interesting as yours are. I'm glad you recognize the humor in the situation. I seldom do. That is one way in which "Only you" is positive.

loofrin said...

*chuckles*

poor maude. funny to see a shaved cat belly.

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

I'm not exactly happy to be "that person," XO, but I'm glad I can at least be "that person" for you.

If that makes any sense.

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

Sometimes, AA, I don't laugh it off as well as I do others. There was one point last Saturday, for example, where I was rather perturbed by the course of events.

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

DWC - Not only is her belly shaved, but there are multiple staples. I forgot to count the exact number, but it was about 8. She had them removed this past weekend... 7 days after they were "installed."

Guess this means she can once again make it through airport security.

Mollie said...

Oh, Neville. Talk about a series of unfortunate events. It is curious how you exist in such an altered atmosphere. I hope that Maude is back to her old self soon, whatever that means!

Anonymous said...

you know, I was up in Winamac last weekend for a family get together / bbq / dad's birthday thing. I was talking to my uncle who has no thumbs. well, he has parts of his thumbs, but no thumbs is a funnier thing to say, and it doesn't require this further sentence to explain it. anyway - he was talking about his animals. he lives in an old farm house out in the country around Winamac. insert banjo music. his house is heated by the two wood-burning cooking stoves in the kitchen, and air conditioned if the windows stay open. he's had goats, burros, sheep, chickens, allis-chalmers, dangerous archaic tear-your-leg-off-at-the-knee farm impliments (it happened to my cousin), but mostly now he just has cats and dogs. despite all this, he's a very funny guy. he was talking about having a bunch of dogs (upwards of 6-8 now and only one of them is named - 'turd'), and that one of his cats just had kittens. ok, so here's my point to all of this rambling. cats are cats. dogs are dogs. sorry if this upsets some of you fur-children people. I've had cats and dogs, and I love dogs. so anyway - uncle Jerry's dog count has a lot to do with traffic on the highway and how many of the nieghbors chickens they kill. the survival rate for the cats, particularly the new kittens, depends on how quickly they start eating the cheap hard food he buys in 30lb bags. and like I said, cats are cats, dogs are dogs. he's got a lot of both right now. if they can make it, I'm sure Maude will be fine. Hell, she's even got a name. That's got to count for something.

ds

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

Maude is doing much better, thank you... she's starting to get playful again, which worries me insofar as I suspect getting back to her "old self" likewise means eating inedible (or, at least, un-digestable) objects!

michele said...

You do have great stories... but I'm sorry about not getting the new car. My fingers are crossed that someone, somewhere will come up with a really great car deal for you... the weirder and more improbable the better!

Anonymous said...

You should put a donate pen-pal on your site, some people are pretty weak when it comes to animals, and when I say people I mean me.

thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy said...

I actually thought about that, if only for the amusement factor. But then I worried it was also just another way of tricking people into buying me a new car.