All right, I successfully stayed the execution of poor Jaco, Eddie’s elderly malnourished but friendly mutt. Now Jaco is enjoying a relaxing ride to the vet. I knew a place that wasn’t too far away, the vet I knew right around the corner from my grandparent’s house. It was only a 20 minute trip, during which I made small talk with Eddie while secretly wondering about the effect of digestive juices’ on American currency.
Fortunately the vet was there, it was a fluke that he had just finished an emergency surgery on a Dachsund. I’m sure the vet meant Dachsund, although with his oriental accent, he pronounced it Datsun. Anyway, our visit was wonderfully short and sweet although we didn’t get the news we were hoping for. By the way “short” is not a dig at the vet, who was possibly the shortest man I’ve ever met. He was even shorter than my grandmother! There were little step-stools all over the premises, it was cute, but we did not laugh at him. (Well, not until later in the car, at least.)
I assumed the vet would just give him some syrup of ipecac or a similar medication to make the dog upchuck the contents of his stomach, a.k.a., the $50 bill. The doctor explained that a dog of Jaco’s age, as well as his being undernourished (he said “malnourished” wasn’t an accurate description of ol’ Jaco) made induced vomiting dangerous for him. He recommended an injection which would cause Jaco to “pass” everything through. It would take around a half-hour for the medicine to start working and would then cause his digestive system to evacuate everything out Jaco’s rear end for about an hour. This brought humorous images to mind, but the vet continued to explain to us in great scientific detail why this course would be gentler on Jaco’s sensitive system than inducing vomiting. It nearly all went over our heads, but we nodded confidently and enthusiastically in hopes that the doctor would stop showing off.
Yes, so the numbers ran like this: $25.00 for the vet visit, a $40.00 after-hours emergency fee, and $23.75 for the injection. So I was out $88.75, not including the $50.00 that had taken up temporary residence inside Jaco. This was a rather expensive visit to ol’ Eddie. I look back on this now as one of the most tremendous (non-military) bonding experiences I’ve ever had, so the money wasn’t really important.
So the little veterinarian man got Jaco and the injection ready, Eddie and I were ready: I paid at the front desk and had then parked the car right outside the back door of the clinic). Jaco was such a cool dog, he didn’t flinch or even whimper! I know, I’m still impressed by that, too. The doctor administered the shot, then Eddie and I whisked him out the back door into the hatchback and we shot off like a bat outta hell.
We were hitting all green lights so we were sure to get home quite a bit faster than it took to arrive at the vet’s. Things were going even better than expected. Eddie and I were joking and laughing like old times. Like that one time that I was in a food fight with a friend of ours named Kurt. It started with him flicking little pieces of potato salad at me with a plastic spoon in the cafeteria. Well I was trying to woo a really nice and foxy girl at the time. I didn’t know how to handle the bits of food that kept coming my way and so I wound up losing the girl. Needless to say, I was pretty ticked off at Kurt. So I filled my mouth with fruit cocktail and walked by Kurt. I acted as if I was going to say something, but then instead I lurched and “puked” the fruit cocktail on his jeans. Kurt was mortified and the whole cafeteria was in an uproar. It was a most satisfying moment. Kurt and I continued getting more and more ingenious with our digestible matter battles, and we eventually called a truce and became friends again, but that moment lives on in infamy.
Yes, everything was going according to plan, once again, until I saw “the truck.”
J.P.T.
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