Thoughts from the veterinarian's office

Odd things about me.

I've never been called for jury duty. I want to be, though I believe it should rightly be regarded as unconstitutional. (To summarize my legendary seminar paper into a sentence, jury duty arose from a time predating the 13th amendment. Saying you are compelled to serve is contrary to the text of the 13th amendment, and de minimis compensation does not make it any less a case of involuntary servitude.) I don't know that I would be a particularly good juror; I make decisions about things very quickly and then have to be beaten nto submission to change my mind. This would obviously give the prosecution an edge, though my general disgust for how law enforcement is operated and suspicion of the effectiveness of the courts may negate it in the end. I don't know, and frankly, I likely will never know, since in an actual trial I would probably not be able to accurately perceive what results from my biases and what results from actual facts.

Odd thing #2: despite regarding myself as a very smart person, I let myself get fleeced constantly, while knowing I'm getting fleeced. Any time I deal with a person of expertise, I instantly yield to them. This trip is costing 600 dollars for that reason, because they want to do blood work and tests that, if they came back negative, would probably not matter to me anyway, since I don't think I really believe in euthanasia for animals. If Stamford can't communicate that he's sick to me for a couple days (possibly longer, but I hope not), how do I know he would really not want to be alive?

The whole ordeal just makes me very concerned that I'm not paying enough attention to any of the cats. That's a hard thing to consider -- I obsess over pets -- but I work long hours, I've been going to the gym, I don't know whose poop is whose, I don't know whether he'd been eating during the work week, since I have to segregate the cats to keep Charlie from feasting on kitten food. The one thing that is nice about kids is that they'll always be able to communicate with you. They may lie, but you can at least ask them things.

I hear Stamford yowling in the other room. It's an awful sound to endure. It's just a great thing he's so good at the vet. If this were charlie, they'd have had to sedate him just to get his weight.