We’re getting the hot tub fixed. There was a leak about 6 months ago, and the repairman fixed it yesterday, but diagnosed two other problems, one critical (the heater is burned out). Replacement heater: $300 or thereabouts. No warranty.
Yesterday I read one of the more stupid things I’ve ever read on the Internet. It was a post at citynoise.org about a “cat” that had been frozen, dead, in a block of ice, then dropped in the middle of Union Square Park. I found it on cruel.com. It’s kind of gross, and the photos about it are really disturbing, in part because of the actual iceblock, and also because the nervous laughter of many of the bystanders looks very, very disturbing.
Anyway, in the many many comments to the post, there was this little gem:
On the 3rd day, we got a call from the vet, saying that someone had brought Puddy to him, and he was not in good shape. Apparently, Puddy had been shot in the hindquarters a block away, and had been trying for 2 days to crawl home. Someone finally found him and took him to the vet, wherupon he was recognized and we were called. The vet tried his best, but had to amputate Puddy’s hind right leg, as the femur had been shattered beyond repair. We got him home that night, and Puddy was making a good try at learning to hop about on 3 legs. But after about 45 minutes, he tried to use the litterbox. When he did, he let out this horrible scream, went into convulsions and died. It turned out that what the vet had had no way of knowing was that the same bullet that had shattered Puddy’s leg had also severed his urinary tract, so when he tried to pee in the litterbox, he poisoned his own bloodstream, and died a horribly painful death in our kitchen. So eneded the life of the cat that many described as the world’s friendliest, as well as one of the tallest (I am 5′ 11″, and he could stand on the floor on his hind legs and paw at my ribcage while I was standing upright). My mother and I were in tears for hours at the trauma of losing a member of the family in such a way. To make matters even worse, Tigger, our 15 year old tabby, was so traumatized at watching Puddy, his closest companion of the last 10 years, die in agony in front of him, that he refused to ever eat again, and he died three weeks later. And my parents were in the middle of a divorce, with my mother planning to move to Morocco at the end of the month. Life was definitely not good.
There are so many things wrong with this, it defies description. This somehow assumes that for the two days when “Puddy” was heading home, he never once, despite being frightened and in pain, had to urinate. It assumes that the vet never did a urinary tract check, and that in fact the cat did not have to pee at the vet’s, either. Then, it assumes that “Tigger,” who is fifteen years old, died of heartbreak and shock after all this, and not, say, from old age or depression that might have been prompted by, say, the major upheavals in the home.
The temptation to basically post and say “that person waaaaay up there is full of shit” is very strong. Why is that? Why do I (and so many others) feel the need to challenge, enforce the “community rules” (which are always unstated and never by consensus)? Why can’t just being a nice person online mean just being nice? On the other hand, why do we always avoid confrontation, to the point of allowing creepy people to breach our boundaries, often without us even realizing the danger?
Anyway. I have a busy 2 weeks ahead of me. Lots of work to do, and a few fun things, too (like BayCon!)
