Dammit, I just dropped the external backup drive on the floor. Presumably broke it, because every time you drop anything electronic on the floor, you break it. The other external drive doesn’t work, either. It broke a long time ago. As nothing, though…
What’s really broken — that matters — is the dog. And my budget.
Today I took Cassie to my son’s vet, who’s only about 10 minutes away (well…when every route going in that direction isn’t dug up and blocked to one [1] lane, which is not the case today…) to find out about the “abnormal” results of her recent urinalysis.
Is there a reason why we have to make such a fuckin’ drama of this stuff?
Oh yeah, sure there is: it’s called a rea$on.
They now want to do another urine analysis, in which they propose to culture the bacteria they found in her urine. Uh huh. And was there a reason we didn’t do this on the first try?
They propose, all told, to charge me almost $700 for the various tests and treatments they foresee.
Understand: I just paid MarvelVet $500 for treatment that has done nothing to help the dog.
Twelve hundred dollars is the sum total of my monthly income. Well, that’s not true: Social Security amounts to about $1211 a month. So this is more than just grocery money. This is more than half of what I have to pay all of a month’s bills. And that’s without repairing the car and replacing the tires after the fender-bender incurred in driving home from the last visit to this vet.
This is just crazy.
One thing is sure: here in our lovely 21st-century dystopia, if you are retired, you cannot afford to own a pet. In the near future, I’ll have to have this dog put to sleep. And that will be it in the doggy department for me: I simply will not be able to have another dog or cat around the house. Because I can’t afford it.
Ruby will still be here, but I’d probably better find another home for her while I can — while she’s still healthy and some naive dummy wants her. Because if I can’t afford Cassie, obviously I can’t afford Ruby, either.
Sooo exhausted. Haven’t slept more than a few consecutive minutes in the past month.
Tried to take a nap this afternoon. If I don’t put the dogs on the bed, they lobby — by whacking the bed and trying to climb up — until I capitulate and lift them up here. Trying to wiggle out of Ruby’s way (she being in full pester mode), I found myself in another cold, wet puddle.
Yesterday I ran FIVE LOADS through the washer, plus had to clean the washer out with the shop vac and then unclog the shop vac. Now the washer is laboring away with another entire set of bedding including a blanket. Literally, I ran the goddamn washing machine until 10 o’clock last night.
Well. Today’s mound doesn’t include the bed pad…this time she managed to pee on the piddle pads that protect the under-bedding. Hope I managed to get all those out of the wad of cloth I hauled out of the garage.
I just can NOT keep on doing this.
Meanwhile, two new jobs came in. When exactly am I supposed to find the time and the physical strength to edit these things, given that it’s impossible to sleep and the dog is so sick she has to be schlepped to a vet every second day and the car is wrecked and the stove is broken and the roof needs to be repaired and…holy shit. To say nothing of the fact that the country is going to Hell in a handcart.
The car is still running. I haven’t had time to get to Costco to find out how much it will cost to replace the tires. Whatever it is, though, between that and the vet bills, I can’t get the pool replastered this fall. Haven’t called the pool guy yet to let him know that deal is going to be off. The brushed metal things that I thought were some sort of fancy wheel covers are…not. They’re the wheels themselves. God DAMN it. So that means I need to buy a whole new wheel for the right front whateveritis on the damned car. God only knows what that will cost.
Still can’t find my credit-card holder with my AMEX card in it. I’m now beginning to suspect, against my better angels, that the locksmith guy must have lifted it. Really: that is the only explanation. I’ve searched all over the house.
There are a limited number of places that I could or would have set it down. We were near the front door when he handed me his bill. I signed it and handed him the credit card, which he put in his Square. He would have handed it back to me, I would have put it back in the case, and I would have — could have — done one of only two things:
- I would’ve put the case back in my jeans pocket, where it resides whenever it’s not in its accustomed home; or
- I would’ve set it down on the lamp table next to the sofa, the only flat place available.
Since it’s not in either place…well…
That day I was wearing the only pair of white jeans I own. I’ve checked the pockets repeatedly: the thing is not in the jeans, not in the laundry bag, not in any other pair of pants, not on the table, not in the table’s drawer, not on the other table near the door.
Am I mistaken? Were we in the dining room or kitchen when this transaction occurred? In that case I would have put the card in my jeans pocket (no…) or on the dining room table or on the kitchen counter.
It’s not in any of those places.
Did I do the responsible thing and carry it back to the office and put it where it belongs, in a small purse hanging from a hook on the wall in that room?
No.
Did I take it back to the office and drop it on my desk or the file cabinet?
No.
Did for some unimaginable reason I put it in the car, in the consoles or on the passenger seat?
No.
Did I leave it on the kitchen counter or dining room table?
No.
And that’s about it. There really are no other places that I would, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, have carelessly placed it.
Soooo…. Reluctantly, I’ve just about arrived at the conclusion that it was stolen. We were chatting merrily and I was distracted by our conversation. If I’d set it on the sofa table, he could easily have lifted it while I was entertained by a dog or by my own mouth going.
Well, if that’s the case, it was more trouble than it was worth for our Nimrod. That card is now canceled. The Social Security number printed on my SS card was blacked out. And as we have seen, the new number on the new Medicare card doesn’t work. I need to contact Medicare and ask them to send me a new card, but frankly, that bureaucratic runaround is more than I can cope with just now. Fortunately, I made several extra copies of the damn thing. Whether they’ll want to cut a new card with a new number, I do not know.
While Cassie was locked up at the vet’s, I took Ruby for a walk, all by her little self. You know, I think that’s probably the first time this little dog has ever been on a doggy walk without the Boss Dog.
Dog interactions are weird. Maybe human interactions are, too…we’re just not aware of it, being humans. She was like a different dog! No dragging, no wackiness…just trotted right along as though she knew how to heel. Which…she doesn’t. 😉
I sure hope the CC wasn’t stolen. I had a similar situation when I made a purchase at Best Buy years ago…I paid with my Visa card and after that transaction lost the card. I searched everywhere and to this day never saw that card again. I called the CC company and they could not have been kinder…Best Wishes..
One would surely like to think not. But it ought to have resurfaced by now if I just carelessly set it down somewhere,. Because, after all, there ARE only a limited number of places to set it down. AMEX says the new card is in the mail, so it should get here tomorrow or Tuesday.
And as soon as it arrives, I’ll have to cancel and replace my corporate credit card, since I stupidly put a subscription form bearing that card’s number in the outgoing mail, and it was stolen.
The damage to the wheel appears to be cosmetic rather than structural. It can likely be repaired for significantly less than the cost to replace it. Google alloy wheel repair for your area.
That’s pretty much what I’m thinking, too. As long as the wheel itself isn’t bent — ascertaining that may require removing the tire for an inspection — if indeed I intend to drive this car as long as I drove the Dog Chariot, who cares whether it has a few sabre scars? Gives it character, eh?
I hate the thought that your cc holder was stolen, but I can’t argue with your reasoning. Even though you’ve been a long time customer with the business, not all of their employees will be trustworthy. Are you going to contact the locksmith shop manager about your suspicions? Probably won’t do any good, but maybe they’ll listen.
Your dilemma reminds me of the time I was ripped off by the maintenance crew when I was living in a dump, property management company just poo-pooed my suspicions, and I moved out 30 days later. Oh, and I was the on-site prop. mgr. at the time!
Poor Cassie! Poor budget! Yeah, I miss having pets, but I really, truly can’t afford them either. *sigh*
You seem to have more than your share right now. You might consider buying tires online and have them shipped to your mechanic. Good luck and keep singing.
Geemeeeneee that sounds like a fun experience. Glad you got out of there forthwith.
I did call the shop under the guise of asking if he would please check in his folio or his truck to see if I might have accidentally somehow put it in with his stuff. This elicited a vigorous “ohhh no he would NEVER do that,” to which I said oh, yes, I KNOW, he’s such an excellent young man…that’s not what I’m saying. Only that I might have managed to drop it in his stuff by accident…. Forthwith, he himself called and I assured him I was NOT accusing him of stealing but only asking if he might have seen what I did with the thing. And his memory of the events was exactly the same as mine.
I do HOPE it wasn’t him, because…well, what a delightful man! Definitely born about 40 years too late.
You know, they say people get more gullible and persuadable as they age, and so as we reach the state of elderlytude we’re total suckers. This guy, for all I know, goes home and beats his wife and then plans out his next bank robbery. But I thought he was just the cutest thing I ever saw…since the last cutest man I ever saw.
Did you check your sofa – under it and the cushions for your wallet? I assume you did. It could be in the completely wrong place (I once put a small jar of garlic in my silverware drawer!)
If Cassie is mostly peeing when she’s sleeping she just may be incontinent and pro-in will fix that. I say when sleeping because that’s usually when my old lady dog couldn’t control her bladder. I can’t recall her having an accident just hanging around the house.