Going to the Vet, the Angry Cat Edition.

So after about a week of putting various drops and goop into my cats eyeballs it was time to take her back into the vet for a checkup of her horrible mangled eyes eye ulcers. Of course she was not okay with this at all ever. Which she expressed by refusing to go into her carrier. So I had Scott try to put her in while I held the crate but he only got her torso in before she caught on that this just might be another plot to take her to the vet and then all hell broke loose and she started making this sound like she was about to fuck our shit up. And of course she is like, super strong from her life outside where she would chase down and kill FULL GROWN RABBITS so then I panicked and turned the carrier straight up hoping gravity would help us out. However it turns out that gravity was giving us the finger that day because all this accomplished was that she turned into a helicopter made out of tail and fur and claws.

A cat-ass-copter if you will.

I started laughing because this was the funniest thing I had seen in a while and then I saw one of her front paws slap down on the outside of the door and then she managed to pull herself out of the thing entirely and tried to make a run for it and Scott had to tackle her.

So the horrible sounds of her laying the smack down resumed and it took both of us pushing on her ass to shove her into the crate and I slammed the door shut after her and latched it before she could turn around and checked to make sure both my hands were still attached and this wasn't going to be like that scene from Kill Bill where she totally cut that others chicks head off but she doesn't realize it at first. Except with my hands. And a cat.

Anyway we drive to the vet clinic and I listen to Emoticon trying to add in her own angry lyrics to the music on the radio and then we get there and the vet comes out and hands the receptionist the tiniest cutest puppy ever and asks her to hold it because apparently he won't stop crying and then all our hearts melt at once and the puppy is super happy because OMG ATTENTION.

Then we head on in and he puts dye in her eyeballs and asks us if we have seen any improvement and then I say no not really and then Emoticon refuses to open her third eyelid AGAIN and I am all like we are paying money for this open your damn eyes except I didn't say it out loud and I am pretty sure she gave the vet the finger.

So then he says that if we wanted we could take her to a specialist who happens to be in Gaithersburg Maryland. Just to clarify, we live in WEST VIRGINA. So then I am all like, well, she was a free cat... and then he said that really though the best thing we could do was keep treating them but that he was pretty sure the left eye was shot but we might be able to improve the right eye.

Which was pretty much the same thing he said the last time we went through all this.

Then I was like, I don't think we can ever take her off these medications again can we? Because we tried that and her right eye was totally fine and then everything went back to being awful as soon as we stopped and now we are playing save the cats eyeballs again. And then he said we were going to have to wait and see what happened this go around which probably means I have a new indoor cat now.

Then we fixed another appointment date and then we went to the counter to pay and the cutest puppy in the whole world was there again with it's working eyes and everything and then we paid and then we went back to the car and I felt bad for the cat and thought about how I didn't want any of this to happen and also about that fact that we pretty much gave each other the cats eyeballs for Christmas this year.

But in a totally non-creepy way.

I mean there is totally nothing weird about giving the gift of eyeballs right? Right?

You know what? I'll just stop typing before I make this worse.

Truck Breaks and Junkyard Adventures.

So the next part of our ongoing saga of fixing the damn truck breaks sometime in my lifetime involved bleeding the breaks. Did I say bleeding the breaks? I meant failure. First off this was like the first warm day we have had in weeks. However the first warm day in weeks does not mean that all the snow had melted so my first task was shoveling snow out from around the truck in the areas we might need to lay down on.

 

Yay.

Second task involved Scott filling up the master cylinder with break fluid and having me very gently pump the breaks so we could test that break hub thing that was a right bitch to get on. So I did that and then of course it leaked like a motherfucker and I had to stop and then Scott crawled under the damn truck and poked at it and then swore a whole bunch. Because of course the lines from the master cylinder would be the ones leaking. You know the lines that get break fluid to the breaks? Those lines? Yeah they were leaking. I realize to the uninitiated this is all gibberish so here have a picture.

 

So then we pull the line off and clean it up and try to put it back on. Which went about as well as you would expect. At one point both me and Scott were under the truck, facing different directions with him holding the line and me trying to thread the bolt on. Of course this didn't work at all ever and finally he tried to rebend the line and then knocked the other top line from the master cylinder off and then we swore a whole lot. Of course at this point I suggested just using JB weld to stick the damn bolts in PERMANENTLY and Scott was all like that just might work but we both kinda knew it wasn't going to work. There was only one option.

We were going to have to pull the damn break hub thing off again.

So Scott pulled the damn stupid motherfucking break hub thing off and in the cold clammy light of a winters day we could clearly see that the top holes, the ones we had been struggling with, were completely bare of threads. It was never going to work. No matter how hard we had fought and swore and cursed and begged the cold uncaring gods of auto repair, it was never going to work. We were going to have to find another break hub thing. Which of course is a part they no longer make anymore.

Which meant we were going to a junkyard.

So we grabbed our shit and some tools and I put medicated goop in the cats eyeballs and then we got in the car and drove. The first scrapyard we stopped at had a nice neat office and was staffed by a nice blond women who had clearly never left the eighties. There was a plastic sign on the counter saying not to place auto parts on it which kind of confused me because I was never really under the impression that junkyards were all that picky about there counters but whatever the fuck. So I just held the part up where she could see it like some sort of fucked up metal peace offering and we asked about it while the damn thing peed break fluid down my arm. So then she was all like, anything that old we just scrap and gave us the name of another place we could try and then we got back in the car and I spotted the greatest thing ever on the way out.

The greatest thing ever.

 Our next stop was an auto parts store where we learned that the part that I was calling the break hub thing and Scott was calling the break distributer was actually called the break proportioner.

Annnd also they didn't have one.

The last place we stopped at was a true to life scrapyard made entirely of mud. We pulled up to a gray dim looking metal building that was your typical half garage half office. Upon entering we were greeted by a vague older looking man. You know the kind of guy who gives you the impression there is no mental activity going on behind those eyes. “You got any cans?” He asked in a wheezy voice. I glance behind me at my 1999 canless Toyota Avalon. Which was the only vehicle in the parking lot. I looked around to make sure I hadn't been sucked into Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Scott explained that we needed a part. The guy explained we would have to go back into the office. In the office we were greeted by a dark haired women sitting behind a desk talking to a older guy who apparently had nothing better to do then sit in a scrapyard office and talk up a receptionist. In the back another older looking women was washing down tables. For some bizarre reason the whole place smelled like cookies.

“You gonna help them customers!?” Shouted the lady from the back, still washing down shit.

So we explain what we need to the two people sitting at the desk who look like we are interruptions into their flirting/drug dealing and then they tell us to go out back and look for Gary. We go out back. Out back turned out to be a wasteland of muddy cars. Many of which had been crushed and flattened into huge pancake like stacks that rose up around the borders of the wasteland like a very ineffective fence. Mud and snow mixed together under the tires of huge car moving machinery. We stopped next to a green building that smelled like pure ethanol and watched the giant car magnet thing move car frames around like they were made of tinfoil.

Finally a guy driving a huge piece of machinery pulled up beside us and yelled something out the window I couldn't hear and then Scott held up the part like it was a magic talisman and they mined something about Chevy and then he yelled some directions over the engine and we were off. What followed next was the most surreal adventure ever. One isle over I could hear the giant car magnet dropping shit while we wound our way through cars that looked like they had been flung down from on high by an giant car magnet. The first truck we checked was completely on it's side, wheels and bed long gone. Even though it had the part, the break proportioner was too rusted and shot to use.

We picked our way out of there and into the nest row over. Which is when I discovered that the “snow” was merely a thin blanket of white over a foot deep hole and I had to do that thing where you jerk forward and then grab you own shoe to keep the earth from ripping it off.

I was pretty over the junkyard by that point. Of course the next truck's break proportioner was shot too. Defeated, unwilling to try another avenue and possibly lose a shoe for good this time we trudged back to the office. Once inside we explained that we didn't find one while the lady in the back shouted more advice about customer service. We smiled and backed out the door, back past the wandering can man and got into our car, still holding the greasy useless break proportioner.

We never did fine Gary.