Next time I'm bringing the kids!

As you may know by now because of all of the kitten pictures gracing my blog lately, we have added two little furry creatures to our family. We have affectionately named them Miney and Moe.

They have a neat story.

My husband's boss's wife is a very sweet lady. So sweet, in fact, that she feeds the stray cats in her neighborhood. About two months or so ago, one of those stray cats decided to take advantage of her hospitality and have a litter of kittens underneath their backyard deck.

Once this very nice lady discovered that kittens had been born, she and her husband began plotting ways to catch these kittens and save them from life on the street.

In late June, this nice lady and her husband saw that the four little kittens had crawled out from under their shelter and were sunning themselves on the very deck under which they had been born. After some strategic planning on there part ("Do we go ON three? or is it 'One Two Three Go?'") they rushed the deck and managed to catch all four little kittens!

Kittens were saved! And our lives would be altered forever!

We took two of these precious kittens into our home on July 20th.

Because they were born to a stray mother, I decided that they needed to have a vet appointment. I have had cats before and I know they are quite susceptible to internal parasites.

So, I made the call and scheduled a vet appointment for Miney and Moe. After consulting my husband so he could come home and watch the kids while I drove the kittens to the vet, we were good to go.

My husband being the considerate guy that he is, arrived at 11:00 so I could leave in plenty of time to make our 11:30 appointment.

I arrived at 11:15.

After we were all checked in, I was told that we would be called momentarily. I found a comfortable seat with Miney and Moe at my feet in their cat carrier, meowing away pathetically in protest of their demeaning confinement.

And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At noon, I checked in at the reception desk again. I stood there for a good 5 minutes before anyone at the desk gave me the time of day.

This was not looking good.

After stating (quite politely, I might add) that we had been waiting since 11:15 for our 11:30 vet appointment and that it was now noon, I was assured that we would be called back in a matter of minutes.

20 minutes later, I was back at the reception desk once again being blatantly ignored.

At this point I almost walked out. If it were not for the fact that Moe had been throwing up for the last three days and Miney seemed considerably bigger than Moe, I seriously would have turned around and left the clinic then and there without saying a word.

I don't get mad very easily, but ignoring me will do it.

But Moe had been throwing up. And his brother Miney was seriously outweighing him even though they had come to us at very similar weights.

Plus, I already had an hour and a half invested in this little venture already.

As I was in the midst of being ignored and putting on my best "really put-out and irritated" look, the clock clicked to 12:30 and I was called back by a nice vet technician. As we were walking back, I asked him point blank "Do y'all always run this late?". His answer was (of course) that there had been an emergency. (Which, if it were true, would make me the witch in this scenario because maybe someone's dog had been hit by a car and was fighting for his precious little canine life while I was bitchily staring down receptionists and anyone else who happened to walk on by. Sigh.)

An emergency I can understand. What I cannot understand is being ignored at the reception desk. (Grrr!!)

Anyway, after a few uncomfortable procedures for Miney and Moe involving a q-tip and a thermometer put up into a place no kitty wants things like that to be placed, I learned that both kittens have round worm.

Ick!

They were also tested for feline leukemia which came out negative.

Yippee!

After having a de-worming pill forced down their little throats, I chatted with the vet about why Moe was so much smaller.

Her answers were not comforting. She kept mentioning that he might have something or other geneticly wrong with him

Great. I would really like taking that glorious bit of information back to the old family.

Because I am a believer in positive thinking, I decided that the problem was that and he was just not eating enough. I bought him some of the soft, fancy-dancy, not-as-good-for-cats, canned cat food to prove my theory.

Long story short (or maybe long story not so long), Moe seems fine now. He has eaten almost 2 cans of food today and was chasing his brother Miney all around the house tonight kicking some major kitten patooky!

Back to the vet clinic. The service was horrible, but my kittens are doing fine!

Because they made me wait for over an hour to get my kittens into the doctor; however, I am going to retaliate by bringing all three of my kids in with me to the next visit.

(Queue the hand wringing and evil laughter.)

Me thinks they will not make us wait so long if their precious waiting room is in jeopardy of being torn up by a bored 6 year old, a very physical 4 year old, and a very curious 2 1/2 year old!

Wah ha ha ha!

Revenge shall be mine!