Madtherine

I believe inside all of us we posses an alter ego. It took me 32 years, but during this weekends activities, I finally named mine. Madtherine peaked her head out a few times this weekend. It was like a free for all for my alter ego. Allow me to share The Ugly Adventures of Madtherine:

Story number one: God bless the vet, but considering that there is WebMD for humans and nothing for animals, they could tell me that my little Scout has boogeritis and I would believe them. However, the ONLY reason I had to go to the vet on Friday was because Scout was out of heartworm medicine. Okay, people that don't own pets, I see you with your puzzled looks, but you can't just order heartworm medicine online. You actually have to have a prescription. It's honestly one of the most annoying things in the world. Like I'm going to OD my pet on heartworm meds, or take them myself. Absolute nonsense. Now, the important part of this story is that Meg had gone in to this same vet a few days prior to take ole Roscoe in for his old man tests. She had asked the vet tech what I needed to do to get a refill on the heartworm and to trade out the wrong flea and tick medicine that was sent to me. Armed with an informational post-it, Meg comes home and hands me the instructions on what I needed to do. Essentially all I needed to do was bring Scout in to get weighed, bring her medical records in and have my vet fax over a prescription. This sounds extremely easy enough for me to carve out a few minutes of my day to get this down. And, knowing how busy vet offices can be, I called to see what day and time would be best. I also reiterated the conversation that was had with Meg, so they knew what exactly I was going to do there. So, with flea and tick medicine, instructions from the vet, and Scout in tow, we head off to the vet. We walk in the door, and the time they had set for me two days ago, was entered into the system wrong. I was two hours early. But, there was no one in the lobby, so they decided they could take me. This is where I started to get confused because honestly the only reason I called was to make sure I was doing this all correctly. So, I started to ask some questions because I was simply going off the post-it instructions I was given. I thought my only requirement was to come in and weigh her and now the vet has to see us and they don't have the original heartworm medicine that Scout takes so they have to give me the name brand stuff. Apparently within the past two days, they have a new policy that they won't just give heartworm medicine, the vet actually has to see the dog. Which is the exact opposite of what we were told. This entire adventure sounds cheap already. Weight taken, only two pounds gained, way to go Scout, we head into the little room, as we wait for the vet to see us. Now, all of you reading this with pets understand what happens the second that a vet walks into the room, right? The price that you thought you were paying, automatically explodes. I had no issues with the dog. She doesn't need any shots, and honestly the ONLY reason we were in there was because the first vet tech gave Meg instructions. Something tells me that communication is not huge at this organization. I couldn't actually believe that we were getting a check up for heartworm medicine. After a few minutes of looking her over, the vet decides she needs to take her in the back to get a closer inspection. Since I had already asked, I reminded el doctor that we also needed a little anal gland extraction. Someone had been scooting their little behind around the floor. 20 minutes later, and a much cleaner rear end, we were escorted to the front where again I was reminded that they did not carry the original brand of heartworm medicine and I was going to have to pay for the upgrade. Fine, whatever. I need it so let's get this done. Then I brought out the F&T med again and asked if we could swap it out. To which the lady behind the desk said no. She actually told me no, when the other person had told Meg yes, all I had to do was bring the dog in. Now, my face is turning red and I'm getting really angry, when the lady hands me the bill. $170! ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DOLLARS! You have to be out of your mind. Her anal gland extraction was $35 alone! I could have gone up to PetSmart and had them do it for $8, but I figured that it wouldn't be too much of a price jump from there. HOLY CRAP! I almost actually lost my entire mind right then and there. It was extremely hard for me to keep my cool. So, as I hand my credit card off to the tech, I make mention that that was an extremely expensive weigh in and that they probably should learn to talk with one another about what they say to their clients. I'm still in a little bit of disbelief that that whole thing happened, and then the weekend continued......

Story number two: There are a few things that you learn living in a big city. 1. The traffic sucks and you can't get anywhere in less than 30 minutes. 2. There is always somewhere to watch a game no matter who your team is and 3. If a major event comes to town, stay as far away from it as humanly possible. So, why did I think that going downtown for the Rally for Sanity/Fear would be an amazing idea? I love me some Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but for all that is good and holy if I ever think that going to something historical would change my life for the better, I should think again. Allow me to start from the very beginning, I hear it's a very good place to start. A few of us had decided to meet outside of a metro stop downtown, as it would be the easiest mode of transportation to get there. So, I picked a friend of mine up and we headed over to the closest metro stop to us to which we were met with a WALL of people. Now, I have lived in this town for most of my life and never have I ever seen the train so jammed up with people, that I wasn't sure when we were actually going to be able to get on the train. It was a terrible time for my friend to tell me that she was claustrophobic and wasn't excited about this whole idea. After standing there for a few minutes and hearing from a local guy that the train stop that started this nightmare was on an hour and half delay, I made the executive decision to drive into the city. If you read that sentence with as much panic and I decided it, welcome to how my day would go. We actually made it into the city, no problem. Found a parking spot, no problem. Come to find out, the meter was broken. It was almost like it was meant to be. So what if we were actually 15 blocks from where we needed to be. I was okay with it. It was a nice day, I was being smothered by people, so why not enjoy it? We walk past the Washington Monument, Natural History Museum and right when I had the National Gallery of Art within my reach, the mob of all mobs was where we were. In the back of my mind, all I kept hearing my friend say was that she was claustrophobic. I still can't imagine why you would think coming to a rally would be a good idea, but here we were. I honestly felt like we were two little salmons, swimming up stream to get to our eggs. I was pushed and poked and prodded by people who wanted to "Keep Fear Alive" or "Restore Sanity". It was some of the craziest nonsense I've ever seen. We push on like this for what seems like forever, but only about 5-10 minutes. We find a stream of people that are heading in the same direction we are, and follow them. They lead us to one of the doors of the Gallery and I figure, why not just take this to the front and try to find my friend. Only, I actually don't know where she is because we have no cell service. Thinking that about 1,000 people will have this same idea, we head to the front, where there is more space than I know what to do with. I have absolutely no idea why the area outside the sculpture garden is so populated. In any case, we find a great place to stand where there aren't that many people around, right in the nick of time. Well, I guess I should say we find a great place where we can see the big screen TV, but can't hear a damn word that's being said. It was great people watching, but not really historic to me because I had no idea what was going on. And we still didn't have cell service. So, we stand around living the dream for 2 hours. When, at 2 pm, I felt as if I was literally going to pass out. I couldn't remember the last meal I ate, and it was kind of warm and we weren't drinking a lot of water and had been around a lot of people. So, we needed to find food stat. I wasn't really sure how far I could walk, that's how low my blood sugar was. We head right back out the way we came and are met with streets full of people, which meant that finding a place where we could get food was completely absurd and out of the question. The hot dog guys on the street had a line an hour long. I just needed something! We start to walk down the street in the direction of our car, when we find an historic DC landmark that sells burgers. DONE! We walk in and are greeted with another long line of people. Holy crap! Do these people ever stop? The answer, is no. We get up to the front, order our food and I decide to get us a table because who knows how much busier this place is going to get. ONE HOUR LATER, my friend is coming around the corner with our food. I am not even exaggerating a little bit with this story. There were moments during that hour that I had my head on the table slowly passing out. Some of you might have actually received texts from me during that time because I was willing myself to stay awake. If I wanted to know what dehydration with possible starving to death would feel like, it was then. And it sucked! I'm not entirely sure that the food was any good either. I ate it so fast I got the worst belly ache. And then we had to walk another 10 blocks back to the car and sit in traffic, because just like the theory of relativity, what comes in, must go out. All in all, it was quiet possibly the worst experience of my life and I'm not entirely happy that I went. ......Which leads us to

Story number three: Now, I wasn't keeping the best story for last, so don't get your hopes up that we're ending on a bang here, but I just wanted to keep the theme alive of just how much my temper was tested this weekend. So, lately Scout and I have been going to the local dog park because I've gotten a little lazy with walking her and it's just getting cold. Sunday was just another day in which I knew a lot of dogs would be out and she would get her energy released. Which makes me a very happy person. (not to mention my room mates love her being tired as well) After about 45 minutes of playing on dry land, I could tell she was getting hot, so I decided to take her down in the river. You can only imagine how dirty a river in a dog park could be,which is important in telling this story. And people let their dogs poop and pee in this river and no one really says anything because it's gross. So, Scout was WAY out in the water when I saw her popping a squat to poop. I really didn't think anything of it and was secretly rooting her own, when to my right, I hear a lady say, you're going to go clean that up. To which my response was, no, I'm really not. Please do not read this and think that I'm one of those dog owners that doesn't clean up after my dog, because I'm not. I'm extremely anal about it and HATE when others don't clean up, but it's a river and it's cold and I have shoes on and no. But this lady was not giving up. She kept taunting me and telling me that I was to go clean it up. So, I took my shoes off and heading into the water. The extremely cold, disgusting, dirty, water. I thought I was going to throw up in it, it was so gross. I began to look, and look, and look. I was walking slow and looking everywhere. When apparently I had gone too far, poop Nazi calls out, "I think it's closer this way". I respond with my glaring eyeballs that I was secretly wishing were laser beams. I had looked "closer this way". I had looked further out. When she said, "I think it's a little more out there" and started pointing, I had finally had it. I simply said, "would you really just shut the fuck up?" Yes, I actually did. I know it's not right and it's not polite and it might actually get me kicked out of the dog park forever, but when someone is telling you to pick up your dogs poop and standing 50 yards away from you, yelling at you for 15 minutes while you wading in the poop filled water, something has to give. I'm not proud of what I did right then, and I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again, but it was right then and there I knew I had had just about enough of the weekend and it was time to seclude myself in my room for a while.

So, that's exactly what I did. Today has been much better for me and I hope to not see Madtherine for a while. But holy crap, don't get in that girls crossfire. She's ruthless!