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Slivers and Snippets: I Will go By The Name 'Junior Bobo' And Dye My Hair Black

Monday, July 24, 2006

I Will go By The Name 'Junior Bobo' And Dye My Hair Black

Last week, I took Bubbas to the vet for his annual check-up. Being 11 years old and being far to feisty to ever allow anyone near his mouth has apparently taken quite a toll on his teeth. The plaque and tartar build-up was so great that parts of his gums were swollen and bleeding, and one of his canines was broken.

I could not possibly feel more guilty about this.

One of the problems is that while Bubbas is a sweet and loving baby at home*, when a vet gets near him Satan** takes over his body and people are at serious risk of losing fingers, eyes, and chunks of hair. When we went last week for the check-up, it took two people to hold him down so they could look in his ears, and they kept getting scared and jumping back. I actually thought it was funny as hell, and there's a good chance my vet hates me now for laughing. Although I am the only one that sustained any wounds during the exchange. And now his chart is peppered with big red stickers that say things like, "MAY BITE," "SHORT FUSE," and "CAUTION." This all means that in order to clean his teeth, he has to be under anesthesia and fully asleep, which is really very dangerous. Because of my fear of losing him, I've always just kinda hoped his love for crunchy food would keep him clean enough.

It didn't.

So last night, Bubbas had to be locked in our room and adjacent bathroom, with no food or water after midnight. And he had to use a clean litterbox with only a little bit of fishtank gravel (plenty of that around) so that I could take a urine sample in with us this morning.

Only problem there is that Bubbas has Truly Astonishing Bladder Strength. Once he was accidentally locked in my closet for over 24 hours while we were out of town, and he didn't pee or poop the whole time. He is very brave. You should all send him treats.

So there was no pee for me to collect, which means the vet had to collect it, which means I had to pay an extra $20 on top of the original $9,000,000 estimate. Good thing I got that week of paid vacation.

Last night I barely slept at all, because I am my mother's daughter and I worry about things until my stomach hurts and my hair starts falling out. Bubbas, however, slept great. He seemed rather appreciative of having the room all to himself for once, no annoying sisters trying to steal covers or jockeying for pillow position.

But by the time my alarm went off***, he was ready to go find his food and water. So while I was getting dressed, he very gently reminded me that I had, obviously accidentally, locked him in the room all night. He purred and rubbed all over my legs and was all sweet and forgiving.

"I know you would never do this on purpose, mom, because you are beautiful and kind, but clearly it is time now for me to be fed and to get some water and a real litterbox. Oh, and maybe those annoying black cats will be gone when we got out there, wouldn't that be great mom? Gosh I love you, let me rub around your legs some more..."

Then he jumped on the bed, and I petted him for a few minutes, cause, you know, I worry, and I would hate to not have petted him that last time. He was rather giddy...

"Oh, wow, a whole night alone with you and I get this extra love, I feel certain that today must be the best day ever, you must be trying to make up for getting that dog and then letting that strange woman look in my ears last week..."

I picked him up and carried him out to the living room.

"I even get to ride to the food bowl! I hate when you make me walk! I love you so much mom..."

I set him down in front of the carrying case.

"What's this? I don't want to go in there, surely you aren't thinking of putting me back in there..."

I started shoving him into the carrying case. Satan took over.

"YOU BITCH. THIS WAS ALL A TRICK? MRRRRROOOOORRRWWWW. YOU LOCK ME UP ALL NIGHT WITH NO FOOD AND NO WATER AND THEN YOU SHOVE ME IN THIS BOX. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. YOU {bleep} BITCH I'M GONNA KILL YOU. I WANT TO TEAR YOUR HEART OUT AND FEED IT TO THAT HORRIBLE DOG. MMMRRRRRROOOOOOOEEEEEEEERRRRRWWWWWWW."

On the way to the vet's office he tried to guilt me into letting him out.

"Come on, I didn't mean those things I said before. I still love you. Please, look how pathetic I am. Surely you haven't the heart to leave me in here. Please, mommy, please..."

But I am strong, and I dropped him off and went home to sleep some more.

He pulled through just fine of course, because he's totally tough****. When I went to pick him up he was already in his box and ready to go. Half way home we were at a stop light so I stuck me finger in the carrying case to keep him entertained.

He tried to bite it off while yelling obscenities at me that I don't even use.

Once we got home I realized the source of his ongoing anger. One of his front legs had been shaved for the IV to go in there, and as Mark says, he now looks like a poodle cat. I think he looks like a flashdancer. He seems to think I am determined to steal all of his dignity from him, since he still hasn't quite forgiven me for the time I took him in and had his manhood cut off.

He wouldn't speak to me at all for a couple of hours, but once he got some food and water in him he made some forgiving gestures. He even let me look at his pretty pearly whites. But he did make me promise not to ever do that to him again.

I promised with my fingers crossed, of course. Turns out he has to go back in a month or two and get 4 teeth pulled. I may need to join the witness protection program after that trip to the vet.



*Except during play time. See, I got Bubbas when he was only a teeny tiny thing of four weeks (hence my ridiculous attachment to him), and it was just so gosh darn cute when he bit and scratched at me... And I was only 17, so I didn't know any better... I thought he would grow out of it... To this day the only other person I've ever seen able to handle actually playing with Bubbas is my friend Melinda, who, it should be noted, has a blind cat that hisses and wants to kill everybody.

**Little known fact: The nicknake 'Bubbas' is derived from his REAL name, Beelzebub.

***At 7am. Dear lord I will keep my cat's teeth clean from now on if you only never make me get up before 10am ever again amen.

****Somebody remind me to tell you the dog attack/gangrene story sometime.

6 Comments:

At 8:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poor, poor Bubbas. It is very sad when your mother is a traitor.

Why didn't the vet just pull the teeth when he was under already?

 
At 9:08 AM, Blogger JR said...

He wholeheartedly agrees with you and has retracted his earlier forgiveness. He now won't come anywhere near me.

Apparently they are't equipped to do the pulling. There has to be x-rays first to make sure the roots aren't fused to the bone, and they don't have x-ray equipment. So we're being sent to a "dental specialist."

No, that doesn't sound at all expensive.

 
At 8:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I really hate to see how you'll act when you have kids...that will be a fun time!!! Also, I find it funny you feel the need to use a "bleep" and then use the word bitch about 70 times.

(on a personal note--manager was talking to me today and said, "I meant to tell you to save all the obituaries while i was gone...Now I don't know who died!!!")

 
At 8:26 AM, Blogger JR said...

Yeah, me and babies will be interesting for all involved parties. And that includes friends whose houses I will drop said babies off at randomly.

I bleeped out the words my mom wouldn't want to hear come out of her grandson's mouth. ;-)

(Manager is SO CRAZY! Save 30 obits? I think he has a problem.)

 
At 10:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can just imagine J.R. at my doorstep.

"Can you watch this kid for few days while we go up to Indiana. It's been puking and green stuff is coming out the other end, but other than that it's pretty cute. Oh...and it cries... did we mention the crying? Thanks, we'll bring you back a magnet. Promise"

 
At 11:22 PM, Blogger JR said...

Hey, Sammie never cries at home! And it was a damn good magnet! And some damn crappy Indiana wine! ;-)

Anyway, don't worry, when we have kids we'll totally drive them up to Indiana, leave them with his parents, then drive down for rollicking fun with you guys. Kids... totally different then dogs. His parents will let THEM in the house.

 

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