Friday, September 10, 2004
Wild Wicked Kitten Adventure
These kittens were feral, and I have like no time to spare what with the School's Team Choosing to organize for the next night, plus it's my first and only night off in a stretch of six days since school has begun starting (Student Council and athletes began Saturday, new students Tuesday, returning students Wednesday, first classes Thursday) with its soccer practices and its important deadlines and needy students, AND THERE ARE TWO LESSON PLANS TO FINISH FOR TOMORROW, and I have to go to dinner and then I'm free. But my name is called, and then comes this pressure to go see the kittens, you have to do it, we believe you can do it. Yes, I love cats and had considered getting one at some point, and to have these small kittens thrust at you is an immense lure. And so I consider it enough to go handle them, these wild kittens that had come mewing for help.
And I guess once you start handling them, they're your responsibility. Of the three found, two other teachers took one each, leaving me with this spunky calico. I woffled, and decided pretty much that NO, not really at this time. Plus I had to get to the gym to find this big mystery board with all these holes cut in it for a FATE game (part of ChoosingNight) and...but then when we try to check the genders, I see on my little furball a really enflamed and puffy anus with (sorry) little white guys squirming around. I flash to my sister's pet rabbit (Montgomery) who died shortly after she was bitten by a neighbor's neglected dog a day before we realized it and I was the one who realized she had a huge wound with maggots all over it by her tail. Well it wasn't quite so hideous and sad on this cat's behind, but still...As fate would have it, the teacher who had been housing the kittens (she loves cats) had a former advisee whose mother is a vet...By this time, I'm feeling pressure to actually take care of this poor creature, who is really starting to show that it is in major distress. It's at this point, when this teacher is looking in the yellow pages for all night animal hospitals, that I wonder How, in the midst of so much stress about work and wedding did I suddenly enter this MORAL DILEMMA? If I just walk out of the situation, there is guilt and perhaps awkwardness at my disregard for this cat's existence. I don't think I'm the bleeding heart type, I'm just a sucker, I guess. I get a number, she calls the vet she knows, and we arrange (since I'm the only one in the immediate situation who is not on duty) for me to drive to Selden (25 minutes, but were A lives, so I know it) to take this animal in. With possible maggots, says vet, it's probably necessary to take it in. I'm guessing it'll be a few bucks, but they'll probably take it in and try and get it adopted.
So we drive, and I'm taking all turns with special consideration, wondering if this bonding experience will lead me to keep the little guy after all. I mean, it's a great story. I'd called A, but I call home, too. They take the cat, I sign a form declaring I'm not the owner, but before I do I look down at it on the waiting room floor of this, seriously, all night animal E.R., and the cuteness is nearly overpowering. I sign. I wait, as they take her back behind sterile doors. The receptionist says, "You're all set." "Um..." (I'm really at a loss for articulation by this point, wondering why I'm suddenly in an all-night veterinary E.R. when only an hour before I had been concerned about whip-cream-filled balloons and a Beowulf intro) "will I ever find out what happens? Will you call me for anything further?" "No...well, you signed the form already and..." "Right, ok. Well, thank you."
End of cat adventure. What is moral imagination? It was a term that came up in my new AP class. I co-teach it with Carlo Teehop.
Sorry for recent absences. What with school and wiki, I've been preoccupied.
Thanks for calling, Flynn.
These kittens were feral, and I have like no time to spare what with the School's Team Choosing to organize for the next night, plus it's my first and only night off in a stretch of six days since school has begun starting (Student Council and athletes began Saturday, new students Tuesday, returning students Wednesday, first classes Thursday) with its soccer practices and its important deadlines and needy students, AND THERE ARE TWO LESSON PLANS TO FINISH FOR TOMORROW, and I have to go to dinner and then I'm free. But my name is called, and then comes this pressure to go see the kittens, you have to do it, we believe you can do it. Yes, I love cats and had considered getting one at some point, and to have these small kittens thrust at you is an immense lure. And so I consider it enough to go handle them, these wild kittens that had come mewing for help.
And I guess once you start handling them, they're your responsibility. Of the three found, two other teachers took one each, leaving me with this spunky calico. I woffled, and decided pretty much that NO, not really at this time. Plus I had to get to the gym to find this big mystery board with all these holes cut in it for a FATE game (part of ChoosingNight) and...but then when we try to check the genders, I see on my little furball a really enflamed and puffy anus with (sorry) little white guys squirming around. I flash to my sister's pet rabbit (Montgomery) who died shortly after she was bitten by a neighbor's neglected dog a day before we realized it and I was the one who realized she had a huge wound with maggots all over it by her tail. Well it wasn't quite so hideous and sad on this cat's behind, but still...As fate would have it, the teacher who had been housing the kittens (she loves cats) had a former advisee whose mother is a vet...By this time, I'm feeling pressure to actually take care of this poor creature, who is really starting to show that it is in major distress. It's at this point, when this teacher is looking in the yellow pages for all night animal hospitals, that I wonder How, in the midst of so much stress about work and wedding did I suddenly enter this MORAL DILEMMA? If I just walk out of the situation, there is guilt and perhaps awkwardness at my disregard for this cat's existence. I don't think I'm the bleeding heart type, I'm just a sucker, I guess. I get a number, she calls the vet she knows, and we arrange (since I'm the only one in the immediate situation who is not on duty) for me to drive to Selden (25 minutes, but were A lives, so I know it) to take this animal in. With possible maggots, says vet, it's probably necessary to take it in. I'm guessing it'll be a few bucks, but they'll probably take it in and try and get it adopted.
So we drive, and I'm taking all turns with special consideration, wondering if this bonding experience will lead me to keep the little guy after all. I mean, it's a great story. I'd called A, but I call home, too. They take the cat, I sign a form declaring I'm not the owner, but before I do I look down at it on the waiting room floor of this, seriously, all night animal E.R., and the cuteness is nearly overpowering. I sign. I wait, as they take her back behind sterile doors. The receptionist says, "You're all set." "Um..." (I'm really at a loss for articulation by this point, wondering why I'm suddenly in an all-night veterinary E.R. when only an hour before I had been concerned about whip-cream-filled balloons and a Beowulf intro) "will I ever find out what happens? Will you call me for anything further?" "No...well, you signed the form already and..." "Right, ok. Well, thank you."
End of cat adventure. What is moral imagination? It was a term that came up in my new AP class. I co-teach it with Carlo Teehop.
Sorry for recent absences. What with school and wiki, I've been preoccupied.
Thanks for calling, Flynn.
