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Cat spaz

We had a nice long, relaxing weekend in Boston planned, Thursday through Sunday. We took Thurday off, planning to take the 3:07 Downeaster. We were a little concerned about the cats: When we leave them alone for too long, Bad Things happen to our furniture. No problem. We decided we would board them at a neat place in Berwick just for cats. It's sort of like a cat spa. Things didn't quite work out...

Unfortunately, when I called on Wednesday, they were full. I left my work number in case there were any cancellations. A few hours later the woman at cat spa called back to say they had a room "a little smaller than usual" which sounded like a tight fit for our three cats. I told her I'd have to call her back and consulted with my wife. We decided to just send one cat (the one we suspect being the culprit of Bad Things) so I called the cat spa back and she said we were all set.

A few hours later she called me back to say they were closed Sunday, so I would have to pick up our cat on Monday. I thought this would be a problem, and I was getting tired of all the phone tag and feeling like this was turning into more trouble than it was worth. However, after further discussion with my wife, I called them back and left a message confirming that we would be coming. When I got home that night there was a message from the cat spa on the answering machine confirming my confirmation. I was a little perplexed that after calling back all day at my work number, she had called home, but no matter -- things were set.

So at 2:00pm, I load up the one cat in question and head over to the cat spa. As soon as I step outside, my first thought is, "Whoa, it's snowed a lot more than a realized." From inside the apartment, I thought it was just flurries. Now I realize have to clean my car off, and that the driving is not going to be great. But it's not far -- downtown Dover to Berwick, just over the bridge from Somersworth. How bad could it be? Bad. Driving was horrendous. The roads didn't seem all that bad, but the people were awful. Central Ave and High St were almost stop-and-go the whole way. I finally arrived at the cat spa at 2:40pm, now worried about making it back to catch the 3:07pm train.

As I walk in and the woman says, all bright and cheery, "Hi! Is this Cleo!?" "Yup," I reply, "I'm kind of in a rush--" "Did you get my message?" she asks. Uh-oh. "I called the vet and Cleo's shots are not up-to-date so we can't take her. I left the message this morning." She left it at work, of course. I just said "Great" and left before I said anything I would regret. I was livid with the entire situation... Why had she called to confirm it was all set if it wasn't? Why hadn't she tried to also call at home? Why had the vet let us fall behind?--the vet says bring in the cats, I bring in the cats! To top it all off, given the snow, I was in risk of not making it back in time for the train.

I thought it might be smarter to take Broadway all the way back from Somersworth. At first this was working out great. The road had more snow on it than Central Ave and High St, but no traffic and I could keep at about 25mph... and then I found the school bus. Aaargh! At this point I thought the game was up -- there was no way I was going to make it back in time, and then miracuously, the school bus turned onto another road! I made it back just in time to drop off the cat, stuff some clothes into the suitcase, and drive over to the train station (yes we drove over to the train station). We even had about 5 minutes to spare sitting in the station.

And so began our "relaxing" long weekend. Thankfully, they serve all sorts of stress-relieving beverages in the café car on the train.