A Pretty Bad Day

March 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

Friday was a pretty bad day. There were some good things about it. It was my birthday so that was a good thing. I turned 36. Not so good but not bad. I had the day off from work which was really good. My employer gives us one floating holiday during the month of your birthday and since my birthday fell on a Friday this year I took my birthday day on my birthday. That was good.

Daycare was closed. That was kinda bad. Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with The Princess and The Boy but I had some visions of watching a lot of college basketball on Friday. We found out that daycare was closed on Monday, I put in for the day off on Tuesday (it is preferred that I take my birthday day this month but technically I had until of the end of the year to use the day). My boss was a little reluctant to authorize taking off Friday because we have been very busy but when I explained that day care was closed she relented.

I’ve got a to-do list a mile long these days and faced with a day off I needed to do something big. I was going to take the cats to the vet. I made an appointment for three cats: Spencer, Missy, and Maggie. Maggie is ours but lives with my wife’s parents. My vet is a friend who gives me a pretty good discount and I have been SCUBA diving with him so I was looking forward to seeing him. The cats were overdue for a checkup and Spencer was looking a bit thin especially after his recent grooming. He wasn’t eating well and occasionally limped. Still, I wasn’t too worried about him.

I should have been.

I packed up both kids, two cats, went to the in-laws to pick up Maggie, picked up my Mom to help wrangle the children and drove across town to my vet’s office. The tech took a history on all three cats and the boy wailed and made the place sound like a pediatrician’s office. Finally, the staff placated my children with donuts and coloring books and the vet came in. Missy checked out OK and Maggie checked out OK.