Cat In A Box - A (Very) Late Night Story
I spent a lot of last evening fuming at clients. The sort who bitch when you do the work they paid for. The sort who bitch more when you do more than they paid for. The sort who make you miss proper dinners. The sort who make you miss gym time. The sort who make you responsible for their own sloppy deadlines.
Ok, anyway, at 1:30 am I should have been well exercised, well fed, well showered and well asleep. Instead, I was just barely shutting off the office lights and heading to the car. At least my phone was charged - 18 hours connected to an office comp will do that. A bit of scrolling through music for the drive home?
Wait a minute? WTF is this half cheep half-apparatus whistle maybe birdlike noise doing in the didgeridoo track? Some sort of hoarse Ozzy cormorant-like critter?
Our office building is nice in some ways; for example it has trees all around. For example, it has a Tesla charger. For example, I can walk across the parking lot to the urban gym. Or next door to the dry cleaners.
Our office building is not very nice in other ways. It is a wind trap. So leaves from all the trees gather in large rifts. Like in front of the back doors. It is old and there have been several decades of electrical reconfigurations. So there is an oil-cooled transformer case in the middle of the parking lot (with random bollards to protect it from cars), assorted traffic control boxes, lighting boxes and ...all over.
So there I am, pushing open the back doors because there is a 2 foot pile of leaves and tree schmutz behind them, jumping over the (slightly wet, almost-frozen type slippery) heap, my breath white in the outside air, one hand on the phone with thumb poised, one earbud dangling, a "WTF is THIS noise?" expression on my face.
Did I mention I was (really more than) a bit cranky?
At that point I seriously thought one of the mystery boxes was letting out an "I'm about to explode" audible alarm. I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to get in the car and leave. Unfortunately the sound was coming from one of the three boxes in the general direction of my car.
I casually wheep-whistle in time with the noise as I walk slowly (a lot slower than I walked leaving the office, for sure). That's when I notice that the noise isn't quite from the boxes, but rather from behind a broken one, between a low bush and the concrete parking lot edging.
And a little grey shadow detaches itself from the concrete and, ever so slowly, moves to my shoes.
Grey? She was tabby coloured with flecks of orange. Smaller than my outstretched hand. Whistle-cheeping at me, both our breaths white in the phone light. One eye shut. One eye bright blue.
Ok, I made the call to herself. You can fill in the lines:
...
"How'd you know I was up?"
...
"Guess what I've got in front of me?"
...
"Well, if she's feral she's awful friendly"
...
"Bring her in!"
She was almost lighter than my phone when I picked her up. I put her on the gym clothes, hoping she'd settle into my shoe once the heat kicked in. I started the car, put the heat on medium-high-blast-with-defog and pulled out of the lot. She stopped cheeping and started shivering, so I sort of tried to warm her up with my off hand.
It's a 25 minute drive home. Just over 15 minutes in I notice my fingers have something wet on them. She didn't just pee all over my gym clothes? She starts squirming and crying again. I turn on the map light. Blood spots. I look and as she squirms I can see one of her back legs is mangled, like into the flesh and tendons mangled.
Another call. Off the highway and through the 2am streets, talking to the poor thing every minute. Map light still on, I noticed a bike bottle left over from the weekend in the door; I wet a finger and sure enough she almost bit my finger off trying to suckle. Crap, crap, crap, where is this place? I pity her at every squeak, every shiver, every pothole hit. There it is! The lemon yellow facade of the 24-hour animal hospital is to my left; I skid around the corner left-handed, wrapping the gym towel around her with the other. Run in.
....Flash forward 35 minutes...
She's lying on her side stretching luxuriously, like she's got nothing but contentment in the world, as we listen to the vet tech tell us about the first round of intervention...the blood work, X-rays, antibiotics (too small!), painkillers (too small!), the IV fluids, and the bottle feed. (And the costs therefor, good thing I don't need a new bike). She's quiet, she's loving the attention, and she's pretending that one of her feet wasn't completely degloved, the other with a major gash in it. Both eyes open.
....Flash forward one hour....
We're back at my office scanning the bushes for mommy or siblings; I'm shivering in my office wear now.
...Flash forward two hours...
Still nothing but dancing shadows and torn electrical boxes with cables strewn about. I give up.
...Flash forward three hours...
Daylight, the X-rays are in, the bones are intact. I struggle to comprehend all this through the fatigue fog, sounds good but they can't operate until tomorrow. Oh well, it's past 7, may as well get up and brew new coffee...
I spent a lot of last evening fuming at clients. The sort who bitch when you do the work they paid for. The sort who bitch more when you do more than they paid for. The sort who make you miss proper dinners. The sort who make you miss gym time. The sort who make you responsible for their own sloppy deadlines.
Ok, anyway, at 1:30 am I should have been well exercised, well fed, well showered and well asleep. Instead, I was just barely shutting off the office lights and heading to the car. At least my phone was charged - 18 hours connected to an office comp will do that. A bit of scrolling through music for the drive home?
Wait a minute? WTF is this half cheep half-apparatus whistle maybe birdlike noise doing in the didgeridoo track? Some sort of hoarse Ozzy cormorant-like critter?
Our office building is nice in some ways; for example it has trees all around. For example, it has a Tesla charger. For example, I can walk across the parking lot to the urban gym. Or next door to the dry cleaners.
Our office building is not very nice in other ways. It is a wind trap. So leaves from all the trees gather in large rifts. Like in front of the back doors. It is old and there have been several decades of electrical reconfigurations. So there is an oil-cooled transformer case in the middle of the parking lot (with random bollards to protect it from cars), assorted traffic control boxes, lighting boxes and ...all over.
So there I am, pushing open the back doors because there is a 2 foot pile of leaves and tree schmutz behind them, jumping over the (slightly wet, almost-frozen type slippery) heap, my breath white in the outside air, one hand on the phone with thumb poised, one earbud dangling, a "WTF is THIS noise?" expression on my face.
Did I mention I was (really more than) a bit cranky?
At that point I seriously thought one of the mystery boxes was letting out an "I'm about to explode" audible alarm. I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to get in the car and leave. Unfortunately the sound was coming from one of the three boxes in the general direction of my car.
I casually wheep-whistle in time with the noise as I walk slowly (a lot slower than I walked leaving the office, for sure). That's when I notice that the noise isn't quite from the boxes, but rather from behind a broken one, between a low bush and the concrete parking lot edging.
And a little grey shadow detaches itself from the concrete and, ever so slowly, moves to my shoes.
Grey? She was tabby coloured with flecks of orange. Smaller than my outstretched hand. Whistle-cheeping at me, both our breaths white in the phone light. One eye shut. One eye bright blue.
Ok, I made the call to herself. You can fill in the lines:
...
"How'd you know I was up?"
...
"Guess what I've got in front of me?"
...
"Well, if she's feral she's awful friendly"
...
"Bring her in!"
She was almost lighter than my phone when I picked her up. I put her on the gym clothes, hoping she'd settle into my shoe once the heat kicked in. I started the car, put the heat on medium-high-blast-with-defog and pulled out of the lot. She stopped cheeping and started shivering, so I sort of tried to warm her up with my off hand.
It's a 25 minute drive home. Just over 15 minutes in I notice my fingers have something wet on them. She didn't just pee all over my gym clothes? She starts squirming and crying again. I turn on the map light. Blood spots. I look and as she squirms I can see one of her back legs is mangled, like into the flesh and tendons mangled.
Another call. Off the highway and through the 2am streets, talking to the poor thing every minute. Map light still on, I noticed a bike bottle left over from the weekend in the door; I wet a finger and sure enough she almost bit my finger off trying to suckle. Crap, crap, crap, where is this place? I pity her at every squeak, every shiver, every pothole hit. There it is! The lemon yellow facade of the 24-hour animal hospital is to my left; I skid around the corner left-handed, wrapping the gym towel around her with the other. Run in.
....Flash forward 35 minutes...
She's lying on her side stretching luxuriously, like she's got nothing but contentment in the world, as we listen to the vet tech tell us about the first round of intervention...the blood work, X-rays, antibiotics (too small!), painkillers (too small!), the IV fluids, and the bottle feed. (And the costs therefor, good thing I don't need a new bike). She's quiet, she's loving the attention, and she's pretending that one of her feet wasn't completely degloved, the other with a major gash in it. Both eyes open.
....Flash forward one hour....
We're back at my office scanning the bushes for mommy or siblings; I'm shivering in my office wear now.
...Flash forward two hours...
Still nothing but dancing shadows and torn electrical boxes with cables strewn about. I give up.
...Flash forward three hours...
Daylight, the X-rays are in, the bones are intact. I struggle to comprehend all this through the fatigue fog, sounds good but they can't operate until tomorrow. Oh well, it's past 7, may as well get up and brew new coffee...
