A Conversation With Joe 6-Pack at the Bar in Palinese

Joe: Golly, Ed! I sure had a goshdarn hard day.

Ed The Bartender: Golly, Joe! What the heck happened?

Joe: Well, my Main Street store had so few customers today and yet, I couldn't get one darned thing done because I watching my IRA portfolio just go down the tubes. You betchya it hurt to watch that!

Ed: Gee, well, Joe, have a Budweiser! If it makes you feel any better, I had a blunder of a day, too. Ya better believe it!

Joe: Well, golly gee, what happened to you?

Ed: Hucksters came in here and walked out on a $90 tab. Those knuckleheads really left me in the dark.

Joe: Ooh, that is so, goshdarn awful. This world makes me really mad!

Ed: Gee Whiz, Joe. You are so right. This world can be so darned cruel. You can bet your bottom dollar, I'll try and catch those cronies!

The Cat Analogy

Commanche.  He gets his name.  With a period.  Because he is Commanche.  Commanche is my cat.  I have owned him now for 10 years plus some months.  Commanche was born when Clinton was still president and the country was doing okay.  Commanche can also read my mind.  I am not going to go on some long, droning blah, blah, blah about him.  Yet he holds some random key to the current economic meltdown in the US.  

He got really sick on Sunday, the 14th of September.  He cried and moaned and couldn't pee.  So, off to the vet we go.  We go to the expensive vet in Park Slope.  We have already spent $3000 there on his sister who got really ill and made it.  Barely.  Now she has a growth on her vagina and is incontinent.   Back to Commanche.  He was blocked and couldn't pee, as stated above and he needed some work done on him.  

The first assumption was that he needed a catheter in his little penis to unblock him.  He would have to stay a few nights in the animal hospital.  Most likely this would work itself out and Commanche would walk out of the building in his little bag, in my arms three days later and all would be fine.  He's be in bed with me and purring.  I'd be the happy pet owner with a slightly lighter wallet.  All would be fine and owner/pet relationship would continue harmoniously.  

But it didn't work out that way.

I was denied fucking pet/vet credit.  I guess the industry has gotten that tight in this day and age.  The oddest thing about it though is that you apply for "vet" credit on the same website as you would people credit.  So, it turns into this odd site where you are searching through hospitals, clinics and veterinarians.  So weird.

So, I got denied.  If this cat can't get the surgery he needs he will die.  

Oddly enough, after frantic phone calls with numerous vets, pleading, freaking out on the phone, etc......  They tell me they can "dip into a fund for people like me."  

And this is where the analogy truly begins.  We can always dip into funds.  We are so rich.  That is the bottom line.  I am just a measly teacher, yet there is some fund to dip into somewhere that allows me to continue living an alright life and not worry about some dire shit and a little cat in a country of 300 million people.