Classless

My longer-time readers (you masochists know who you are) will recall my confession of several years back, when I made my first dental appointment in a long time. I was (and still am) a dental phobic. I got comfortable going on a more-than-regular basis (because of my liver failure and immunosuppression) because I came to really like and admire my hygienist, Sharon. It had gotten to the point where I didn’t even stay awake the night before, dreading my appointment for the next day. I got to the dentist’s office barely in time, more pleased that I wasn’t late than nervous about the visit. And then they told me.

Sharon left. Over a month ago. Gone. Not working there any more. Nobody knows where she’s working now, although one of the girls there will be seeing her this weekend at a graduation party for somebody’s son. But hey, no problem. We’ve got Patty here assigned to you.

OK, picture a large hole in the outside door to the office, shaped like me. THAT was what I wanted to do. Then, after the initial feeling of panic hit me, I started getting angry. I kept it to myself, since I knew it was just my fear’s way of trying to get me to leave. But WHY didn’t they tell me in advance? Why didn’t Sharon tell me when she left? I told her, on more than one occasion, that I was going to this dentist because of Sharon and not because of the dentist. I even told her that if she ever left to work elsewhere I wanted to know so I could follow her to her new offices. Why did she abandon me?

Well, I got through the visit just fine. The chair only suffered a little bit from my nails biting into it, and I didn’t throw up. I was even polite, and made all the right gurgling noises as the hygienist and then the dentist talked to me with their hands in my mouth.

And no. Nobody there wanted the kitten.

After the dentist I had just enough time to make it to class before it started. I still can’t really find the college on my own (that trip is The Socialist’s specialty, not mine) but I followed the website directions and got there with minimum fuss. I was a little surprised when, at three minutes before class start time, I found a class of strange people in the room. None of my classmates were in sight. Did I miss a call while I was at the dentist’s office? Was the classroom moved, or was class cancelled? I began to wander about a bit, until I saw two women wandering about looking just about as confused as I. Sure enough, they were in my class, and neither had brought the class confirmation papers with them, so they weren’t sure if they had remembered the correct classroom. I was able to confirm the room, and we wandered back. The teacher (who seemed to be administering some kind of test to about two dozen students) saw us waiting outside and asked if we were scheduled for the room. When he found out we were, he moved his class one door down to another room.

We three walked into the room, followed by the rest of our class (who I swear materialized out of nowhere). Class was to have started ten minutes ago at this point. We were all there, and finally all in place, but where was the teacher? Where was the teacher who spent fifteen minutes the previous week admonishing us not to be late or to miss any classes? Where was the teacher who made us find “study buddies” so that if something happened we’d have someone to take notes for us? Where was our fearless leader? We gave her half an hour, and then most of the class left. I’d come too far and in too much of a frenzied hurry to simply up and leave, so I hung around and talked writing with three other classmates for another half hour. At eight o’clock we all agreed that there was no chance she’d be showing at that point, and we all left.

There was a message waiting for me on my machine when I arrive home. She’d had to go to the hospital for a family emergency, and had (quite understandably) quite forgotten about class until it was too late to tell us not to come. She sounded quite apologetic, and said we’d get a make-up day for this.

All this is fine by me. I despise that parable, and have decided I need to rewrite it. I’m going to take a more traditional fable approach this time. I’m toying with an idea, and I rather like it. I’ll see where I can take it.

Just my luck:

The first person who says “I knew it!” gets the kitten in the mail, COD. But The Socialist and I were speaking last night, and neither one of us wants to put the kitten into the moral equivalent of a cat pound. She’s had it hard enough already, and she deserves a little luck in her life. Understand this, though. WE ARE NOT KEEPING HER! We’ll just hold her until we can get her a home. And I’m still holding out hope that her perfect home is out there, waiting for me to find it.

I’ve now found out (by talking to the right people) that there’s been an orange stray roaming around the back of our property all spring. This puts a different light on things. I’ve been wracking my brains as to how a kitten this young found its way through security all the way to our receiving docks. I’d half wondered if it hadn’t been brought in a truck by accident or (worse) if one of the trucker had dumped it here. But now chances seem very good that she was born here on the property, and I worry that there might be other kittens in the litter. I also worry about Mother Orange Cat presenting us with another litter of kittens looking for trouble. I’m thinking of trying to trap her, but if she’s feral, then trapping her spells her doom. Still, that kitten acted as though it were used to being around people and being handled.

Crap. I just don’t know. Why do people let their animals roam loose, and why don’t people spay/neuter their pets? I hate being put in this position.