Charlie the Dog has been scratching and chewing around his
rear end for a week or two, so today was trip-to-the-vet day. As Sandy and I were getting on our heavy
coats for the short drive in frigid weather to the Vet at the Barn, Charlie freaked
out. Charlie suffers from separation
anxiety, and won’t eat or drink or play with his toys while we’re not home. How do we know what he does or does not do
when we’re out? Because not a thing is
eaten or moved until we return home. (The
lone exception is an unfortunate, now torn sofa pillow that takes one for the team.)
But today Charlie outdid himself. Sensing something was up, he went into a
whining, squealing, crying, yelping fit, and refused to calm down. It got so bad that he crapped. In the house.
Fortunately, it was on the old rug in the basement, and the poop was
firm enough to easily pick up with a plastic baggy (yeah, I know, poor rug).
In Sandy’s car, the dog continued his meltdown, even in Sandy’s arms; his
high-pitch yelping hurt my ears, making it hard for me to focus on my
driving. I could see myself being pulled
over by a cop for swerving and driving while under the influence ... of a panicked
dog.
We were the first of the morning at the vet. Even so, we had to wait 20 minutes while the
doc had her morning coffee, I assume.
The wait was an ordeal with devil dog barking and whining, squirming, trembling,
and pulling, worse than ever before.
Finally, Charlie was examined by the vet, and led away to some unseen
back torture chamber where he got his rabies shot, a blood sample drawn, his
rear end attended to, and a sedative administered. The
doctor gave (or should I say sold) us a bottle of the doggy downers. To be fed to him two at a time with meals.
As we left the building, even with a somewhat high Charlie
pulling, Sandy and I breathed sighs of relief that it was over. So we thought. When we got to Sandy’s car, it too whined and
squealed, but, unlike Charlie, it wouldn’t go anywhere. The battery was dead. Apparently, in the frenzy of our arrival, I
had neglected to turn off the headlights when I parked at the vet.
We stepped out again into the freezing air, and back to the vet’s barn we
three plodded. I asked if
anyone had jumper cables. The pleasant young
receptionist nodded, got on her coat, and pulled her car around near Sandy's Honda Accord where I
met her. With hands trembling from the cold,
I attached the cables from her battery to ours, and ... nothing. Well, not nothing; sparks
were flying. I detached the cables, thanked the good Samaritan, and again
went back into the building.
Sandy got on her cell phone to her auto club. A recording told her that the wait for service was
90-minutes. Ninety
minutes!? Who goes out in weather like
this? I told Sandy that I would
walk the mile or so home to get my car and my heavy-duty jumper cables. She smiled a mixture of appreciation and
pity, reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn’s sad smile at Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen as he climbed back
into the shallow, swampy, leech-infested water to continue towing the
boat.
Bundled in my winter parka, with scarf and bunnet (a taxi-driver
type cap with ear flaps down), I half walked and half jogged south along Route
45, careful to step as far as possible off the road as cars bulleted past me, apparently having no doubt
that the bundled up pedestrian would manage to get out of
their way in time.
The temperature had to be in the low teens, and I chillingly
realized I had underestimated the cold.
The wind was in my face. My
cheeks were stinging. I began to worry about frostbite. With my nose running, my moustache froze. I tugged my scarf up to cover my face to my
eyes. My eyeglasses fogged, and the fog froze, limiting my visibility. I thought of Omar Sharif as Dr.
Zhivago trudging his way to Lara, similarly bundled up, falling over in the
deep snow of Siberia, almost freezing to death.
But he made it home, and so did I.
I started up my new Nissan Rogue parked outside, turned the heat up
high, and entered the garage to get my jumper cables. They were not to be found. I searched for 10 minutes until I literally
stumbled over a plastic milk crate containing items from my old car, including
the cables. I zipped back to the vet,
the Rogue holding the icy road fairly well.
I attached the cables, started up my car, and then Sandy’s. I gave Sandy, standing warm inside at a
window, the thumbs up.
When we got home, I let Sandy’s car run for
a short while so that the battery could recharge. Eventually, I shut off the Honda, opened the door
to get out, and the car alarm went off. I
sat back inside, closed the door against the cold, and hit the alarm button on
the Honda key. The alarm silenced. I opened the door, and the alarm went off
again. This time I shut the door from
the outside, hit the button, and the alarm ceased. Another thing to have a mechanic look at.
As I took off my coat in the house festooned with Christmas wreaths and lights, my eyes fell on the jar of
Charlie’s sedatives. I wondered what his
two-pill dose would translate to for a creature seven and a half times his weight.
