Creek Running North

I have a few Anglo-Saxon words for that woman myself.

Jesus Christ, a literal veterinary drive-by.

One of Bill Frist’s long lost cousins i presume.  You are way to nice to strangers though; first negativity out of someone’s mouth affords me the opportunity to exercise my 9th Amendment rights and leave the scene immediately.  They may have the right to say it but i have the right not to hear it.

Bugger ‘em.

Fuckin’ a, man!  I was hoping you’d say that Zeke mustered a leg lift and peed on the side of the woman’s car.  But even in his old age Zeke remains a gentleman.

Snort! Sorry you’re dealing with these nosy busybodies, but this post is hilarious. Give ‘em your best Anglo-Saxon.

Ah, Chris, I’m so sorry to welcome you to the world of the concerned “drive-by”.  I have years of experience, as the mother of two children with autism.  You can’t believe the medical/behavioral/parenting advice I’ve received while visiting grocery stores, playgrounds, malls, school events, particularly when my sons are exhibiting some of the less desirable attributes of autism (screaming, tantruming, spinning, laughing maniacally, etc.) Did you know all I had to do to change my autistic sons’ behaviors was to be more “firm” with them? 

Anyway, excuse me as I climb back up from that little memory rathole.  Make extra chicken strips for Zeke, and buy Becky a nice bottle of Syrah.  (and if Becky doesn’t drink, I’ll take it.)

I do wish you all could come down a visit here at Jalama. The very dog-friendly beach is a-calling to Zeke.

Yes, stochastic orthodontia… Sometimes that’s the only answer. I recently had to put down my favorite border collie, Copilot. I, unlike car-woman, can empathize with your situation. Take good care of your buddy. Keep him as comfortable as you can, and enjoy every moment you have with him. If he’s anything like Copes, he’s irreplaceable.

Aw, man, Copilot’s a great name for a dog. So sorry to hear you had to make that call, Tommy. But welcome.

MB, I think Zeke’s Jalama-visiting days are over. He can barely hack the trip to the vet anymore. We’ve relegated road trips to the “things to do after Zeke’s gone” realm at this point. Que sera syrah.

=v= What you need is a white lab coat with a little nametag on it ("George Hayduke, DVM").

By the way, MB, have you and Eric come up with a generally useful response other than screaming invective, which is my current strategy?

Alas, Chris, I have not.  Eric, however, has quite a few strategies in his current repertoire, one of which is to declare their behavior genetic, and then proceed to act just like them.  Shuts down the concern-troll each and every time.

I have become pretty good at the pre-emptive guilt.  “You have to excuse my son if he starts to scream while you’re scanning my groceries.  He’s autistic, due mostly to my consumption of during pregnancy of an excess of highly nutritious and organic foods, much like these here.  Oh, and the mercury the FDA claims is bad for fish, but peachy keen for newborns.  But then, it could just be that I’m a refrigerator mom.”

I still would opt for the rearrangement of incisors with canines.  Or vice versa.

Eric, however, has quite a few strategies in his current repertoire, one of which is to declare their behavior genetic, and then proceed to act just like them.  Shuts down the concern-troll each and every time.

I think this one will work especially well for me and Zeke. Thanks!

You have to excuse my son if he starts to scream while you’re scanning my groceries.

Hey, if you guys come visit and we shop in the Hercules Albertsons, you could blame the TeeVees they now have blaring informercials at
every.
single.
checkstand.

Maybe it’ll get them to turn ‘em off.

Being a lifelong stutterer, I’ve been amazed at the number of speech pathologists roaming the streets, manning cash registers, driving buses and generally loafing around offering free advice. Must be some sort of government initiative. It had never occurred to me to think about what I wanted to say! The tears well up just thinking of all that free-range compassion. Several times I was tempted to affect a facial tic, and explain that, while I had suffered many years of severe psychosis, I was feeling much better now, with a John Astin leer.

Luckily, we never had a problem with amateur vets while walking with Max in his later years. Even though he was fairly feeble, he still had a belligerent, don’t-fuck-with-me demeanour (a facade, of course).

This post is just hilarious, in a bitingly painful kind of way.  Everyone thinks they know better than you, don’t they? 

And the phrase ‘stochastic orthodontia’ is a permanent add to my book.

It was certainly nice of her to jump to conclusions and make all sorts of unkind assumptions. 

Maybe next time you could find some flaw in her car—an old dent, excessive gasoline consumption, whatever—and inform her in exactly the same tone of voice that she really should have that taken care of.

Teutonic woman, screaming:  “Take that dog to a vet!”

Chris/Becky, screaming:  “That rusty old POS you’re driving needs a new paint job, NOW!”

I suggest calmly asking her if she is, in fact, German, and if so, telling her politely;

Ficken Sie sich, und das Pferd, in dem Sie darauf ritten

Works better if she is, in fact, riding a horse.

As a public service i offer this public service video, which though delivered from Russia, is of course purely Anglo-Saxon in content.  Use with discretion, use propertly, and most of all, use it often.

Chris: “By the way, MB, have you and Eric come up with a generally useful response other than screaming invective, which is my current strategy?”

Per Jane’s idea, I like the idea of peeing on the car. Not Zeke. You.

Just unzip and rip. No words required.

It’s silly that people would think you don’t care for Zeke, when he is quite clearly loved and taken care of. I say unleash not only the hearty old Anglo-Saxon words, but some instructive gestures may be called for as well.

When I take La Beale Tae out and about I get the driveby vet people telling me I need to feed her. Since Tae eats everything that I give her - peanut butter, biscuits, yogurt, hamburgers, her eight cups of food a day as well as whatever food she manages to snag on her own from my plate - I think that my greyhound is quite well supplied in the food department. Most people do about as well with the driveby diagnosis as Dr Frist.

Please tell Becky that your internet friends
have learned that Ms. Teutonic is an administrator
for the Oakland School District.
And since good ol’ Zeke has hearing problems now, it’s perfectly OK for you to lay on the Anglo-Saxon with gusto.
You showed admirable restraint. I would have
considered engraving “MYOB” on her car’s paint
with my keys.

Oh, I am sorry you had the unpleasant driveby consult.

I am grateful to Rob for the German version of one of my favorite sayings.

My own feeble & geriatric critter is an equine, so I am spared almost all of the drive-by stuff.  He totters and potters happily about a confined space, which he knows well, so his almost completely occluded vision isn’t obvious.  Yes you can count every rib, but there are all those bizarre fat pads, and he has food available all the time for eating gumming.  Life is still enjoyable for him.  I do think we have an obligation to our animals to be attuned to the balance between....it is hard to put into words.  It isn’t “are there more good minutes than bad?” Maybe the best question has to do with the animal’s general level of anxiety.  If the critter is feeble, but not at all anxious, well, Reaper, stay your hand.

As far as the drive-by folks go, I find a version of Suzette Hayden Elgin’s “Boring Baroque Response” works quite well in these situations.  You talk right over the drive-byer, with full (if not kindly gimlet) eye contact:

“Oh, thank you so much for your concern.  Let me tell you about the last time our vet came to visit, was it last Tuesday or the Thursday before that?  Oh, well, never mind.  Dr. Goodtogo was so impressed with how he is doing on the latest regimen, we are feeding him lamb and rice every two hours, I’m sure you know how good a lamb and rice diet is for the elderly dog, oh, you don’t?  Your dog is on another regimen?  Perhaps you should consult Dr. Goodtogo, I have his card right here.  Oh, you don’t have a dog right now?  Well, if you get another dog, surely Dr. Goodtogo should be your vet, he is so good on quality of life at all ages.  You know Dr. Goodtogo and I agree as long as Zeke is still interested in food and going for walks, he has good quality of life, don’t you agree? Zeke is gimpy of course, but gimpy is still enjoying life, otherwise all the crippled people ought to be dead, really, but what an awful thing to think, it’s what the Nazis did to all the people who weren’t perfect.  I wouldn’t want to be a Nazi to my dog, would you? Well of course Zeke is more slender than he was in his prime, but of course keeping his weight down is so important to reduce the stress on his joints, don’t you think so many people would be more active if they were more slender, but of course it is harder for people to control their weight because they have to control their intake, I know it is a problem for me, but maybe you don’t have that problem.  And of course Zeke is a little tottery right now but he lets us know that he still wants to go out and enjoy the smells, his tail is wagging and as I said, he is still eating and that is such a joy to him, the food I mean, and of course while he is not chasing squirrels he still looks at them and remembers chasing, it’s like it is all, oh, and have I mentioned how kind is is of you to be concerned about Zeke?  We’ve been pals for XX years, and he is still enjoying life, not of course with the full vigor he did X years ago, but then again I am slowing down too, I imagine you are at least my age, well don’t you find that some of the things we could do with great energy are still quite enjoyable now that we have to do them with more restraint, I know I do, perhaps you are different.”

And you keep babbling on in this manner, and at some point the annoying person drives off.

In other words, you want them to shut up and die of shame, and you do so by drowning them in words.

It is a sort of verbal aikido, in which you use the person’s own rudeness in a non-confrontational way to throw them onto the next orbit.

Howdy Chris an’ that,

Solidarity, brother, from where my ma was advised from passing vehicles as kindly as you appear to have been, to have her children cleaned up and taken to the nearest hospital for treatment of our variously diagnosed bronchitis, musculo-skeletal injuries and malnutrition.

So many experts, so little time to consult them all.

My old dog Shadder - he’s black and sticks by me - is in an even more twilight time than Zeke sounds to be, but I don’t get drive-by encouragement about his treatment. 
It could be because a blackfeller’s dog isn’t worth the energy.

I don’t know.
But Shaddie will let me know when he thinks life isn’t worth it.

And on the tv stuff
Hey, if you guys come visit and we shop in the Hercules Albertsons, you could blame the TeeVees they now have blaring informercials at
every.
single.
checkstand.

Maybe it’ll get them to turn ‘em off.

I use and recommend this handy gadget
It’s a bit heavy on the batteries, but gives such relief in bank queues and dentist’s waiting rooms.

Never any question which is the over-rated species, eh?

I wish for you more interactions like those I’ve had with my gimpy, shrinking, white-faced 13 y.o. lab/chow.

Given chowness and poor first home, Cootie has been an anxiously austere boy who triggered only hinkiness in strangers. Now that he is old and sick, however, he engages people. He’ll stop short, look up and radiate a mild love, which appears widely irresistible. For the first time, people give him what Lester Young called “nice eyes.”

My gutter guy is a Vietnam vet paralyzed by dogs. In November, he stood for 20 minutes in the driveway with Cootie, and they breathed in the dark, together.
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I’m a new visitor: what a fabulous site.