This Whole Thing Makes Me Sound Like a Pansy

I've been home nearly a week now, and its taken me nearly a week to get back into my old routine. Too much food, the luxury of not working, too much activity, too much excitement, and this old lady was spent. But I was aware enough of my surroundings to know that Sarah wasn't acting like herself. She wasn't through the roof excited when I came home from my self-imposed exile, and she kept scratching at her ears and they smelled like dirty sweat socks in a boy's locker room. Sarah, being a golden retriever, gets ear infections often, so I decided I would take her into the vet, to check things out.

On a side note: I probably have had more ear infections at age 23 than anyone on the face of the earth. Most of my childhood memories involve me treating ear infections, or having ear tube surgery. I've had some weird ones too-once during a flight my ear drum didn't pop back into place when the altitude drop, my ear drum has burst, I had a fungus problem for months (gross I know), and once I got a pencil eraser stuck in my ear. But that last one, was probably my fault. So now every time I get so much as a sniffle my mom freaks outs and claims that one sniffle is going to cause an ear infection. "It's going to go to your ears!!" she cries. But she doesn't do this in a calm way, she does it more like a chicken with her head cut off (which is basically the way me and my mother always communicate, since we both have anxiety disorders). So I always spend several days talking my mother off the, "Its going to go to your ears ledge." It is exhausting.

When I walked into the vet's office, I noticed a really big turtle (tortoise maybe) rolling around the main office. And I do mean rolling. Apparently the turtle, named George, had lost one of his legs in an accident, and the vet had replaced the leg with a pool ball. So he clunks around the office pretty easily. I was originally worried that Sarah would bully the turtle, as she likes to do with any animal that isn't a dog (She once broke into a neighbor's chicken coup and ate a live chicken). But she just sniffed George and dismissed George. After that, I didn't give a second thought to the turtle. Once I got Sarah back into the examining room, it was confirmed that she had an ear infection, and they also called her fat. Which yeah she is fat, but I'm fat- so what can I say? lol

So they took Sarah to the back room to clean out her ears, and I heard a steady clunk, clunking noise coming down the hall. Then the not so little turtle George poked his head around the corner outside my room. I guess something about me peaked his interest, because he started moving towards me. And he kept moving toward me, and I kind of went from being amused to a little scared. I was worried because this turtle seemed so determined to get to me. So I just kind of sat there with my anxiety levels rising, as he creeped closer to me. I mean I certainly wasn't going to ask someone to help me, because admitting I was scared of a turtle seemed worse than losing a toe. But luckily the vet walked by and rescued me, and told me she was afraid he would go for my toes since I was wearing flip flops. I was so relieved and happy that I saved my toes without having to admit my fear.

But about 5 minutes later, just as I was starting to relax, George had returned to torture me. I am watching this three-legged turtle limp towards me, telling myself over and over, "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BE SCARED OF A HANDICAPPED TURTLE." I mean I'm scared of things like napkins, freeways, and life, but not poor George. But I'm just sitting there watching the turtle come at me like a slow, death march, praying someone will walk by the door and save me, and trying to hide my feet. He finally gets close enough to strike, and is bobbing his head up and down, when my survival instinct kicked in, and I realized I needed to move him. Brilliant, right? But I was afraid to move him with my hands, because HELLO I need my fingers.

So I take my wallet, and literally just roll him the other direction. He would pretty quickly turn himself around using the pool ball he has for a leg. I must have had to turn him around five or six times, before the vet came back with Sarah to save me. Finally, she put George in the back room so I didn't have to worry about him any longer, so I got to hold on to a small piece of my pride. I got Sarah back and then nearly wanted to barf when I paid the bill, all the stuff they did plus flea medication cost me $241.00. I mean Seriously? Seriously? I look at that cute face, and shes so worth it, but still that really hurt. I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about the nationwide health care option, but I could definitely get behind free health care for pets.