Full baboon

Saturday was annual visit to the veterinarian for my cats.  This is always a day of great stress for all of us. You will recall a couple of years ago when I took Fred to the vet in the midst of one of his quarterly poop storms and his cat carrier fell apart outside of the Vet’s office.  Hoping to not relive that horrific experience, I put two new cat carriers out on the floor a couple hours before I needed to leave. Both cats crawled inside and promptly went to sleep. But then when we needed to leave they figured it out and both ran upstairs to hide under beds.  I had anticipated this reaction however and factored it into our 90 minute travel time.  Why 90 minutes? While I live in south Seattle, all of my medical care is north of the ship canal - yes, up there where the white people live.  Eye doctor, dentist, regular doctor, vet.  This is always a pain in the ass. Freeway traffic northbound is always terrible so I gave us 90 minutes to get to Green Lake.  Soon we are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, kittens screaming, me screaming at other drivers. A great time was not being had by all. I tried some Yoga breathing, but that was useless.  Then I tried thinking back to my pre-paleo days of drinking alcohol and eating carbs, but that seemed like a distant memory and was not especially comforting.   

90 stressful minutes later we arrived at the vet.  The receptionist, Kelly, always likes to tell me how much she loves my answering machine message.  She and her friends have been calling a couple times a week and then hanging up for years.  Anyway, I am ushered into a room where Fred quickly hides in the corner and Hyka decides to sit on my head.  After about 10 minutes, a new doctor I don’t know comes in.  She tests the kittens’ hearts, teeth, and eyes.  All good, but she notes there is a lot of ear hair.  Speaking of hair, I explain that they only throw up hair balls a couple of times a day right now but not usually on the couch.  This is good.  She agrees but notes that they both have knotted clumps of hair on their back legs and around their butts.  She suggests that when they take the cats out of the room to give them their rabies shots they could also give them a hygiene clip around their super hairy little bottoms.  Bad things get trapped back there on a regular basis so I agree to the light shave.  The cats are taken away, and then is a few minutes a young intern comes back and says loudly, “Hey on that butt shaving, did you want the light trim or the full baboon?”   Quietly I’m like, “Light trim, please.” 

Soon I hear hissing and then someone scream.  Hyka has clearly lashed out and sliced someone. There is a knock on the door and the intern comes in.  He is pale and his wrist is bandaged.  I see a blond tail sticking out of a somewhat bloody towel.  He dumps Hyka on the counter and then goes to get Fred.  Hyka is facing me cooing, but when Fred returns they both turn around to show me their butts.  Their hairless butts.  Full baboon.  Not a cat hair to be seen from their tails on down.   

Embarrassed, humiliated, they both climb back into their cat carriers so they can go home.  As I go up to pay I see that they charged me $23.75 for each full baboon.  I suppose complaining at this point is rather pointless, and I am probably lucky that Hyka did not slice open one of the interns’ veins, but I am not coming back here in the future.   

I wonder if full baboons are covered by my pet insurance.  

Later, after going to the gym and picking up groceries I come home to find both cats laying in the sun, their little rear ends pointed towards the light.  I think they are cold down there.   

 

 

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