I'm happy tonight because at last my Fuzzy Boys are home! Sprocket and Finnovar had to board at the vet while the contractors were working inside the house, which was only supposed to be two days but stretched into a week through a long, convoluted series of events not interesting to relate, but the basis of it was that the work was on-again, off-again and neither of us were in a position to pick them up each evening and drop them off again the next morning so they had to stay for the duration. I can't express how much I missed them, and how sad my bruised and achy heart was in their absence.

I dropped them off Monday morning, but Alan got off work earlier than I did today, so he was the one who picked them up. "Great!" I groused. "You're the hero who bailed them out of doggy jail and I'm just the beeyatch who abandoned them there."

Doggy jail was fine with Sprocket - then again, just about anything besides a b-a-t-h is fine with Sprocket - because he makes friends with the other doggies (there was once even a summer romance with a small Pomeranian), the ladies make a fuss over him, he goes on nature walks and enjoys himself. Plus, now he's strutting around talking tough about having done "hard time". Finnovar, on the other paw...Finnovar is like that crotchedy widowed old biddy relative who refuses to stay home, insists on going with you on vacation yet hates absolutely everything that happens the entire time, and bitches about stuff like the beach being sandy and the ocean being all wet and salty.

When Alan arrived for pet pick-up, the ladies looked aghast at his errand. An eerie silence fell. Deep, meaningful looks were exchanged. Finally one vet tech piped gingerly, in a hopeful tone, "Um...you'll get Finnovar yourself, right?" As Alan trotted happily to the back to retrieve our darling pets, the girl in charge of the kennels toddled along beside him, apologizing the whole while for the state of Finnovar's pen. Apparently they hadn't been able to clean it because every time anyone tried, he hissed, spat and pitched such a violent DOES NOT WANT! tantrum that everyone was afraid of him. Complicating the matter was the fact that he's a large cat and evidently there wasn't a vet tech strong enough (or foolhardly enough) to compel him to do anything he didn't wish to, even when they felt guilty enough to force the issue. His pen hadn't been cleaned all week, even though they typically take the boarding pets out, play with them, interact with them a lot.

It rather makes one wonder, since vets and vet techs are trained at, and adept at dealing with, pets in distress, upset at unfamiliar situations, sometimes angry and in pain: what could he possibly do that's bad enough to repel and frighten professionals? I don't know, but I know that ever since his first series of kitten shots, there has been a big flourescent orange sticker on his file that reads "BITES!!" - seriously, there are two exclamation marks - and they won't do any work on him at all unless I hold him or they are allowed to sedate him, which makes his dental cleaning fun, I assure you. Alan reports that all the girls at the clinic were cowering away from the Finn-pen in horror, as spitting, growling and displeasure resounded from within; everyone looked along in abject disbelief as he reached in, grabbed our sweet widdle kitty and cuddled him close. Purring began. Vet techs stared at Alan in stunned awe.

So it would seem that the person I have known since birth, nurtured and raised single-handedly since five or six weeks of age is moody, bad-tempered, wants things done his way or not at all, throws horrible tantrums to make people suffer for not bending to his will and (last but not least), most certainly does NOT Play Well With Others. Oh, I KNOW! - I was surprised too.