welcome to camp telophase

...her regular vet checkup, that is. I managed to pick her up and shove her into her carrier this morning without incident, and took her to the vet. They offer a drop-off service: I leave the cat there in the morning, they do the exam at their convenience, and I pick her up after work. The girl at the front desk was new, however, and didn't immediately take the cat back like they normally do, so she stared at me and uttered mournful meows as I walked out of the place, ABANDONING HER. (I assume the meows, actually. She has a tendency to go with the ones that are too high-pitched for humans to hear, like kittens sometimes do, when she wants something form me.)

It probably traumatized me more than her.

So I go to pick her up, pay for the bits of the exam that aren't covered under the vet's insurance program thingy, and the tech goes to the back to get her.

Now, this office is a Banfield, in Petsmart (Hey, it was directly across the highway when I moved into this complex). There's an operating room behind the front desk with windows on either side - and blinds they pull when the room's in use - and you can see back into the main exam room. You can also see the door to where they keep the animals.

The tech gets my carrier and goes back into the animal room. A long while passes. Eventually, the tech comes out into the main exam area, and goes off into another room. A small crowd of techs gathers at the door of the animal room. One of the vets comes from the other room and goes into the animal room.

Another long while passes. The original tech joins the crowd, dabbing at the back of her hand with a white bandage or paper towel or something. Eventually, in response to a cue I can't hear, one of the other techs fetches a pair of those long leather gloves they use to handle feral cats.

Some time after that, the tech goes into the room and returns, with a fully-laden carrier. XD I mentioned something about how my cat had a strong opinion about things, and she smiled and assured me everything was OK.

She was not happy about the whole vet thing, but at least she exacted her pound of flesh. Perhaps literally.

What I really do not get is how these people expect me to clean this cat's ears out. She bizarrely allows me to stick my finger in her ear, and will press hard against it, because the earwax in there makes her ears itchy, but no cotton swabs, medication, or anything else. I know they have to zip her up in the kitty bondage bag just to examine her and there's a note on her file to that account, because every time I take her in and wait there for the exam, instead of dropping her off, they just take her back to the back in the carrier and do the exam there, instead of in the small exam room with me. They, trained to handle obstreporous animals, can't handle her without help, yet *I'm* suppsoed to be able to clean out her ears? Riiiiiight.

Anyway, she's healthy, although somewhat dopey from her vaccinations, and blames me not at all. She's sleeping at my feet at the moment. They're doing a test on her ear gunk, since it's red, although it's always been red, and always been a lot - I don't know why they didn't have a problem with it before. Ah well.