I thought I was one tough mama, after living through a tiny biting sort of hell known as the Great Flea Infestation of 2007. August, 2007 to be more precise. Putting up with all the flea bites on myself and on Austin, not to mention the yowling uncomfortable cats and the treating of all the flesh wounds that David got from having to wash our two calicos over and over seemed like an ordeal to be lived through.

And we even had embarassment, in the form of slutty ex-sorority girls from Stanford (they live above us. I am sure I will mention them again) complaining to the landlord about "our fleas", which had somehow infested their cat-free apartment as well.

Patronization came next. Those same Standord Sluts, checking in on me to make sure I was aware that I should try and get rid of the fleas. Because, as a working class, non-Stanford mom, I might not have the correct mental facilities to deduce that it ain't cool to have your three year old walking around with flea bites on his face.

But really, this was nothing. Nothing compared to walking jauntily into the apartment with Austin, who is carrying a beautiful enormous feather (a possible source of fleas, I know. Now shut up.) after spending a nice saturday morning riding his bike around the neighborhood, to find your old calico cat bunched up in a corner with blood dripping out of her ass.

Try to picture me, in a cab with a child in a car seat and a screeching bleeding cat in a box zooming through San Francisco traffic, desperately praying the cab driver will get real close to the vet before the counter on his dashboard reaches fifteen bucks, which is all I have in my pocket.

Now picture me walking the last three blocks carrying both the car seat and the cat-in-a-box with Austin hanging on to the pocket of my jeans. Try not to picture me hissing at people who stopped to stare at us and say "How Cute!" Why we were cute looking is beyond me.

Anyways, embarrassment happened when their accountant publicly announced that I had not paid my the bill from Neko's last visit. Patronization happened just because I was dealing with medical personel. But THE REAL HELL happened when the accountant told me that they would not be able to treat our cat at at all due to lack of communication regarding Neko's bill for a previous visit, which had happened 6 days before.

6 days before David took Necko in because she had not pooped not even once, in about 3 days. The details of the billing and payment structure of the vet are of course, boring. So I will not relate them here. But the mighty urge I felt to help Neko and the motherly aversion I had to putting one's child's pet in a situation where they could die suddenly and thus scar the child for life both became so strong I burst into tears. Because crying would not put me in jail. Grabbing that accountant lady's head and rubbing it in Neko's bloody discharge, which was my other urge, along with the averting and the helping AND the crying, probably would have ended in some sort of jail time. And I ask you, who would take care of that cat's ass if my ass was in jail?

So I cried. And in a daze Austin and I wandered out of the vet and down the street before I realized I had left without my driver's license. An lo, when I found my way back to the vet's through a whole bunch of sticky, salty tears, something had happened to that accountant woman. Something good. Something that is supposed to happen in a non-profit, animal friendly vetrinary clinic. She decided that she would bend the rules for us and let our small, sick old cat recieve treatment. Later, when David was able to get to the Vet, I found out that it was not us who had the details of our account messed up, which to be honest happens quite frequently.

It was the freaking vet.

Can you believe it? Well, you should. If you don't, go ask Alice. We had to cancel a playdate with her to deal with this bloody mess. Sorry Alice.

Update tomorrow on the cat. Promise.