Awful dog owners and their rotten curs
Private Life
Keith Richards - 12:45 pm PST - Mar 3, 2000 - #224 of 278 (# 44 of 47)
Okay. Time for my next dog story. Skeeter the Keeshound.
On night as I am closing out the store at around 9:15pm, I hear a gutwrenching cry from the kennels where the new arrivals get put before they go on the sales floor.
The dogs are usually bred in the midwest and flown into the Maryland area and then trucked to our store. It was summer and hot. They don't give the animals enough water sometimes. Big problem in the summer. Sometimes the flight and shipping can take 24 hours.
I walk over to the kennel where the Keeshound is, henceforth to be known as "skeeter", to find him balancing on his nose, mouth agape, tongue hanging out of his mouth. I touch him and he falls over, bonk. Unconscious. Shit. It is after 9:30 at this point. If I leave him here he is dead. I gotta sleep at night, I can't just leave the little guy. The closest emergency hospital is 30 minutes away and I have no car. DAMMIT. I call my girlfriend and tell her to get down here as fast as she can. She takes one look at limp little Skeeter and starts tearing up. I tell her he is not dead. YET. We gotta move fast. We hop in the car and scoot.
We get to the emergency vet clinic around 10:00. Just as I am walking through the reception area, he looses control of his bowels all over me. SIGH.
The other patients owners ask what is going on. I tell them I work for Docktor Pet Center and.......groans of disapproval fill the room! "C'mon people gimme a break", I said, "you see me here trying to save the lil pups life, can I have some love here?" They let me go first.
Turns out the little guy is so dehydrated that he is in a diabetic coma. They pump him full if fluids through an IV. Nothing. No response. They give me a bag of fluids and tell me that there is nothing to do but give him more fluids and watch him. They can do nothing else for me as I can't afford to have them keep him overnight.
So much for a quiet evening at home.
I call my roommate. "Dude. I need you to clean and sanitize the kitchen counter. And buy lots of beer. I got a dog in a coma that we are going to have to try and keep alive."
"DOG?!?!? COMA?!?", luckily my roomate also worked at a pet store and was aware that this shit happens. He sets up shop for me.
I get to my apartment and not only has he set up shop and purchased a CASE of Molson Golden, he has told my friends and I walk into a concerned animal lovers party!
Unfortunately, Skeeter is doing no better. I tell my roommate and friends the story so far. The girls are weepy. I tell them that we very well could lose the little guy tonight, do not get your hopes up.
You shoulda seen the kitchen. IV bag hanging from the top of the kitchen cabinet door. Comatose puppy on the counter. Poor dude.
Finally, after giving him his last shot of subcutaneous fluids, I lay him down on some clean newspaper. It was 4:00 AM. I could do nothing more. I went to sleep on the couch, hoping he would at least still be alive when I woke up.
5:15 AM I hear the sound of rustling newspaper! He is awake, he can't lift his head or anything, but he is blinking his eyes and licking his lips. Thinking I am out of the woods, I decide to forgo extra sleep and keep him active. It works. 9:00 AM he is still weak, but I lay him on the back seat of my girlfriends car and head to work.
He is back in a coma by the time I get there. Shit. At this point, I have to much emotional energy wrapped up in Skeeter. I stay in the back until he comes out of his second coma at around 11:30.
Two weeks later, after I decide to take him under my personal care, he goes out for sale. I inform my staff that he is NOT to be sold to anyone without them being approved by his dad, ME. At this point he is convinced that I am his owner. He follows me around the salesfloor and sits by my desk when I am doing paperwork.
Luckily, one of my employees girlfriends purchased the dog. As she knew his history, she didn't think it was right to change his name. He was TEETERING on the edge of death, hence the name SKEETER, because it rhymed.
The last time I saw Skeeter he was about 1 1/2. He came running down the aisle and just started jumping up and down. He got so excited that he peed on the floor! The owner said, "he doesn't get so excited that his pisses on himself for anybody but you Keith, and I don't know why."
I do.
Nashville, TN
Home and Away
DanaScully - 03:07 pm PST - Mar 3, 2000 - #16 of 19 T (# 44 of 47)
The good ole boy mentality still rules the day.
The words may sound lovely in a southern accent, but there's always a hidden agenda and usually a very cruel one.
The salaries are very low and certainly inadequate to keep up with the rising cost of living in Nashville. The sales tax is currently 8-1/2% (including food), and it looks as though a state income tax will be a reality in a few years.
There is NO public transportation system. The traffic gets worse every day while the city electorate scratches its collective rear end and squabbles over whether or not to serve beer at a newly-built stadium.
If you're not a member of a "real" (i.e., Baptist, Church of Christ) church, you'll soon find the locals trying to ram Bibles down your throat.
Forget about buying wine at grocery stores; it's against the law. There's no state lottery, so Kentucky is the beneficiary of millions of dollars from Tennesseans buying tickets.
The daily newspaper, The Tennessean, is one of the worst papers in the country. Poorly written, edited and researched. A local weekly has a column that exists just to point out the Tennessean's neverending foul-ups.
Even if you have lived in Nashville for a number of years, if you're originally from the northern states, you'll always be an outsider.
New posters, lurkers, and people with questions...
Mothers Who Think
David Smay - 01:02 pm PST - Mar 6, 2000 - #559 of 623
Because (and only other parents will really discuss this with you) completely apart from your hypothetical child's worth as a human being - there is a huge difference in how easy any particular kid is going to be to raise. Some kids sleep through at an early age. Some kids are easy to please. Some kids can entertain themselves. Some kids want to please you. Those things make a kid easier. If you have a colicky baby - you are fucked.
My son, completely healthy, normal, bright, loving, really fun - has not been easy. Still doesn't sleep through the night and he's 3 1/2. The tantrum phase genuinely traumatized me (I'm better now). Like that.
So you could still enjoy your 20s as a parent. Lots and lots and lots of people love their parenting experience more than anything else they've ever done. I can guarantee that it will put stress on your marriage, you will be sleep deprived, you will go through periods covered with puke and/or shit, and it will definitely mow down the spontaneity in your life. Trade offs that grownups make.
Another way to look at it is this...I had my son in my mid-thirties. I would say that the four or five years previous to that I had been doing some coasting. I enjoyed myself during that coasting, but I had basically mastered being Early Thirties. Parenting has forced me to grow. So if you're ready to make that leap...
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