Meow

Posted on March 7, 2004 @ 5:36 pm

My wife has spent the last couple of weeks working an externship at a nearby veterinary emergency hospital. From what I’ve gathered from our conversations, the late-night emergency shift tends to bring quite a few interesting characters into the clinic. For instance, a few days ago, a woman came in with a six-month-old cat that had been in labor for a couple of days. Since it was too young to deliver and was in quite a bit of pain, the doctors determined that the cat was going to need an emergency C-section — at an estimated cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars.

My wife reported the prognosis to the cat’s owner, who became agitated and began to argue that she shouldn’t have to pay that much since it wasn’t her fault that it got pregnant. Instead, she felt that Animal Control or the Humane Society should cover the cost for her. As diplomatically as possible, my wife explained to the owner that it was ultimately her responsibility to have her cat spayed — especially if she was going to allow it to go outside.

“Well,” the woman explained in her defense, “this cat is the reincarnated spirit of my mother, so we wanted her to have a couple of litters before we got her spayed.”

Yep, the cat was the reincarnation of the owner’s mother; that’s why it hadn’t been spayed. I’m sure Mom appreciated the thought, too.

This is a prime example of why it’s a good idea that my wife is entering a profession in which she’ll work with people on a day-to-day basis, and I’m planning to become a recluse in the ivory towers of academia. Whereas she did her best to overlook the bit about reincarnation and pressed ahead with the consultation, I probably would have responded with something along the lines of, “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t realize that you were completely insane.”

Now that I think about it, wasn’t there an episode of Friends where Phoebe finds a stray cat that she thinks is the reincarnated spirit of her mother? I can’t believe they’d play such a serious metaphysical concept for laughs…

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