Puzzling Incidents

Listening to Songs: Ohia's cd, Let it Rain. Never listened to it much until now. It is apt. I'll let you figure the figuring.

Bubbs is with me and her presence presents a stacked moral conundrum. First of all, I felt strange about even getting her spayed. We had no choice, since we have one male kitten and one female and don't want to run a nursery. Since Big D showed the first signs of sexual activity, she was the one to go under the knife, lest there already be Big D Juniors in her belly.

There weren't. She is wobbly, but seemed to recognize me when I brought her out of the carrier. She is lying by my side now. Her face is a little puffy and her eyes are unfocused. But she wants to be close and has occasionally started purring when I touched her ears.

The vet seemed sketchy. I'd never used him before but he came up first, alphabetically. He ended up charging me an extra sixty for shots. I told him I didn't have the money. I didn't. He shrugged. I said I'd find a way to get it. He took her in.

"She's in heat," he said, rubbing her belly. "That's an extra thirty."

Then he turned, as if remembering my situation, and looked away. "I will waive the fee."

*

When I picked her up, he took nearly fifteen minutes to charge my credit card. I had to pay partly on the card, partly with money lent to me by the Boss.

When I got out to the car, I looked at the receipt. He had accidently undercharged me by one-hundred dollars.

Fuck.

I put her in the car and stood outside in the cold.

I shut my door and started walking back to the office.

I went back to the car and turned around perhaps two times.

I thought of how long it took for him to charge me. He didn't speak English well. I don't know if he ever understood me, or if he was, underneath his bumbling outward nature, a charitable person, and was taking pity on me.

And then I thought: I'm going to have to wait another fifteen minutes while he processes my card again, while the cat stays out in the cold. It was a long enough drive ahead: I opted for a vet near the W, not near my home.

I got in the car and drove off, with one-hundred dollars to my name.

It was a dark drive home. I listened to Dinosaur Jr. Instead of hitting shuffle, I've started listening to artists on my ipod, and shuffling between their songs (the answer to Mikey's comment is that I didn't listen to the songs in order, which may have been a mistake, but it worked.)

The Dufflebag just knocked and told me it's dinnertime. I'm off to go eat and will write more later.