I was preparing my shots of vaccine to make a call to the farm while the barn owner, a nervous woman named Loralale, was picking up horses and taking her to her individual booths for spring checks and vaccinations. The farm cat was injured around my ankle and stood on its hind legs to examine my campaign. Someone discovered the interior of my work van and finally fell asleep in the weak Carhartt coat in the back seat. He drew attention to the cat that was not being chased at the top of the visit.
A List of Demands
Tote in hand, I entered the barn. Lauralee was in full swing.
“Courtney, I’ve collected and bagged manure samples and labeled them. They’re in the refrigerator. The farrier adjusted Ricky’s angles because his hips were popping, and he explained that he needed to feature some compound to the toes and put special shoes on because there was an imbalance, so I just need you to form sure the hip popping has stopped.
“Babe just isn’t herself, so I’ve talked with Dr. Yesman, who felt that she needed bloodwork, and also to check her urine, so we need to collect that. I also want to X-ray Everett’s left hock, not the right, because I called Dr. Brilliant and she thought the hock was the problem, but I don’t want the full series, just two views that she said gave the most information, because I really can’t afford to spend a lot on her or any of the others because my husband says you charge way too much. So that’s our list so far. And Dr. Amazing will be out tomorrow to check teeth and do dentals.”
I shook my head. Lauralee was a notorious pain in the rear but in the past, I’d at least been asked to examine the horses and offer my opinion, and since she paid her bills promptly, I’d kept her as a client. But this was too much.
I knew of Drs. Brilliant and Yesman, and was generally appalled by their medicine, and Dr. Amazing traveled through the world once a year doing teeth and taking an excellent deal of labor faraway from the local vets, so i used to be no fan of his either. there have been many excellent referral vets within the area, so why did this woman always need to latch on to the dodgy ones?
Pennywise, Pound Foolish
I insisted on doing exams before I’d consent to any diagnostics and on cue, Lauralee fussed about the cost and again quoted her husband who thought vets (i.e. me) were too expensive.
I looked slowly round her brand-new barn with custom rubber floors, shining tack trunks ahead of each stall and a tack room filled with expensive equipment. The feed room was full of every pricey supplement, treat, cookie, top-dressing, oil, grain, cube and pulp on the market. The recently finished indoor arena stood nearby.
I gritted my teeth and began my exams. Ricky’s distorted feet were grossly imbalanced with poorly fitted shoes, the expensive compound stuck to his toe was falling off, and he had a suspicious painful swelling over a fetlock. Everett was lame on the right front, not the left hind, and there was a thread of heat running up the inside of his cannon and swelling and pain to palpation over his splint bone.
Lauralee didn’t care. She wanted her tests, so I shrugged, drew blood and picked up urine from the screaming and squatting Babe, X-rayed the incorrect leg on Everett, and made sure Ricky’s hips were OK. Lauralee texted three days later demanding hard copies of the X-rays and therefore the labs.
Cat’s Out of the Bag
I had to go back out a few days later, and Lauralee let me know that she’d Googled the (totally normal) bloodwork and urinalysis. She had a list of diseases for Babe, a diagnosis for Everett from Dr. Yesman, and she’d sent copies of Babe’s labs to a homeopath. And I’d forgotten the manure samples in the fridge.
I fetched the poop samples and abruptly decided I’d had it with Lauralee, her poop, and her Googling. Grandly I marched over to her, handed her the baggies and told that I would no longer be able to provide veterinary services for her. She stared at me, for once shocked into silence, and with great dignity I wished her well and drove away feeling pleased with myself.
I was several miles down the road gleefully reliving my speech when something landed in my lap, scaring me so badly that I almost drove into an irrigation ditch. I’d forgotten to de-cat my truck when I’d made my amazing exit, and I’d accidentally stolen Lauralee’s barn cat.
Great. Now I had to go return the cat. Could I leave him at the end of her drive? No, he could get hit by a car. Maybe I could hike up in the dead of the night and run for it after dropping the cat near the barn? No, they had several dogs who would surely sound the alarm.
Long and Winding Road
Slowly, I turned around and headed back to her place. As I pulled into her driveway and stopped at the gate, her stone-faced husband pulled in behind me in a brand-new Audi S5 Cabriolet. He tailed me up the driveway, goggling as I got out and set the struggling cat on the ground. Mercifully Lauralee was nowhere to be seen, and I drove off quickly. I looked back when I reached the end of the drive and the husband was still staring after me.
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