Vet visit, June 2006

Saturday, 10Jun06, I had a vet's appointment for the 2 cats: Abiko and Misu. Mimi and I got to the veterinary clinic early. I filled out some forms.

Then I got the idea to get myself weighed on the scale in the waiting room. Normally, a dog stands on the scale, and the receptionist reads the weight on a digital readout behind her desk. I've been losing weight lately, according to the scale in the gym I go to, so I wanted to see what I would weigh here. Of course I had clothes on, so I knew the number here would be high. I took off my sweater with my cellphone in the pocket and threw it on the waiting room sofa, to lessen the excess weight a bit. The receptionist told me I weighed 130.5 pounds (if I remember right)....

To get to the point of this story, after the cats had their examinations, I paid the bill and left. Only after I had been back home a couple hours did I wonder where my cellphone was. I looked everywhere at home and could not find it. Then I remembered I had made a call from the vet's parking lot before going in, so I knew I had it then.

I asked Mimi if I had taken off my sweater in the vet's office, and she said I had, and then I realized that I had taken it off before I got myself weighed, threw it on the sofa, and forgot about it. So I had indeed left the sweater and the cellphone in the vet's waiting room.

Unfortunately, by this time, the vet's office was closed for the day (it was Saturday, and they only work until 12:30 on Saturdays, and now it was well past then). I called the vet's office, and the answering machine message said they were closed and to call such-and-such veterinary clinics in an emergency, but it did not give an option to leave a message. The vet had told me that she lived in the same town I live in, so I looked in the phone book and found only one listing for someone with her last name, and the address is plausible. I have called that number several times but no answer (I also noted that there is a vet listed in the all-Westchester telephone directory whose office is in another part of the county, who has the same first initial as the phone book listing I found, so maybe that listing is for this other person, and not my vet?). Each time I dialed the number, after 4 rings the phone started making odd noises like maybe it was a fax machine or something else.... So after several tries over 3 or 4 hours, I finally stopped trying.... [Calling the vet at home, even if it had succeeded, probably was intrusive and inappropriate, and there would likely be nothing that could be done until Monday morning anyway.]

Part of how I'm trying to cope with my anxiety and not get very upset and depressed, is by writing this story.

Sunday morning, when I went to the gym, I sent a fax to the veterinary clinic telling them to look for my sweater (this was definitely an added incentive for me to go to the gym this day! -- the office where I work is right across the street from the gym, and I always stop in the office -- which has is a fax machine --, on my way to the gym on non-work days). On the other hand, driving both to and from the gym, I passed the veterinary clinic and wondered about the status of my sweater and cellphone -- if only they had been open later Saturday I wouldn't have this worry....) Exercising does help me be less anxious / depressed.

I had forgot to bring a stool specimen for the cats to their appointment, so I told the vet I would drop one off at the clinic on my way to work Monday morning. She told me to put it in the box outside the side door, since I would be leaving it off at about 5AM, long before the clinic opens. Obviously, I leave a note with the stool sample about my sweater.

Will I get my sweater and cellphone back? My wife seems to think it will be no big deal, and, logically, there is no reason why they will not find the sweater and hold it at the reception desk for the person who lost it to call for it. But I worry -- indeed, in the anxiety of just having moved from a house I loved to a new house that has significant downside quality of life changes for me, I'm "looking" for things to get anxious and depressed about.

As for the probability of getting a forgotten item back, the previous Sunday, my wife left her wallet in the shopping cart at the supermarket, and only realized it was missing on Monday morning. She went back to the supermarket -- and they had her wallet! When she had called me at work early Monday morning, to tell me she could not find her wallet and had probably left it in the shopping cart at the supermarket, I had thought it was probably "gone for good", and I became very anxious about the big mess to come. When she called me again a few minutes later to tell me she had got it back, I spontaneously emitted a loud exclamation of relief that what I had feared was highly unlikely had in fact happened. (She told me she had told Mimi that I would probably do just that -- make a loud exclamation -- when I heard she had got her wallet back.) --If that unlikely recovery of a lost item happened, surely one should expect I will get my sweater and cellphone back from the sofa in the vet's office. We will see....

Monday Morning

I did fortunately sleep well Saturday and Sunday nites. Monday morning, however, I anxiously wait until 8:35AM -- 5 minutes after the veterinary clinic's opening time --, to call and ask if they found my sweater.

The lady who picks up the phone says she has it "right here". I ask if there is a cell phone in a pocket. I wait another anxious minute while she checks and then replies: "yes". I assure her I will be there by their closing time, 5PM, to pick it up, and thank her and apologize profusely. I am thankful -- just like when my wife got her wallet back at the supermarket exactly a week before.

No lost cellphone after all (nor my pullover which I like a lot because it fits me comfortably, keeps me warm but not overheated over a wide temperature range, and also has that zippered little breast pocket for the cellphone or whatever...). Now to get thru my workday until it's time to pick up the sweater and then pick up Mimi....

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12 June 2006CE (2006-06-12 ISO 8601)
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