A postcard in the mailbox with a cute little puppy on the front doesn’t always mean that Auntie Roma is sending me greetings from some far away place. No, no! One should check such a pretty card carefully, because the flip side could very well contain an unpleasant surprise, like an official invitation from the vet to visit his office. He wishes to see me, and the sooner the better.

I just love it. Yes, sir! I’ll be flying over to see you as fast as I can. Just wait!

Frankly, we didn’t have good luck with the vets. One was sloppy, the other was greedy. And then we’ve got the third one recommended by a local magazine. I remember well the first visit to that vet. It would be hard to forget.

We arrived early, and the waiting room was empty. The receptionist, an unattractive and unfriendly woman with big glasses, gloomily registered our presence. After a short while, we entered the exam room. Well, I thought, so far so good… but this peaceful interlude didn’t last long. The door opened and two girls entered.

They were young and “cool.” Fashionable. Falling down jeans and haircuts that resembled people who were shocked by a sudden burst of electrical power. Each had a tag with a name and a title: “Technician.”

“Technician?”

That means what? And what does such a “technician” do? I was suspicious, and rightly so. They smiled sweetly and tried to take my temperature… you know where.

Well, I couldn’t possibly let them do this to me. This temperature taking business is just humiliating, and one thing I absolutely can’t tolerate and forgive is being humiliated. Luckily, I won the first battle, and the two fashionable “technicians” left the room. Okay!

Act II: Moments Later

The doctor entered. He was quite nice, but soon I discovered that he wanted to hurt me using a long needle.

I believed that I had every reason to defend myself in such a situation, and I showed him exactly what I could do.

So, they put something like a muzzle on my face, and that made me really crazy! It was a sheer bedlam; everybody was jumping and screaming, almost like in a horror movie.

After a while, totally exhausted, I let the doctor give me all those vaccination shots. And then, at the time of my defeat, he made a verbal assault and stated rudely right in my face that I was obese!

“Too fat!”

I am asking you, how low can you go? That was a blow below the belt, where, actually, most of my flab is located. And I was told that I must lose God knows how many pounds, keep a low-calorie diet, and run like a Saluki.

Saluki is the breed of dog that goes back thousands of years, all the way to the Egyptian pharaohs. Salukis were slim, fantastic runners, but no wonder! At that time there were no cars, so they really had no choice but to run.

That disastrous visit to the vet was concluded with the sale of prescribed diet food that cost an arm and leg, and an invitation to come back every month for weigh-in.

I have to confess that I never had the slightest desire to follow those instructions. I don’t like to be told what to do. I like to decide things for myself. So, I am still considering the diet every day, and many times I told myself that I will have to do something about it. But not today. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow is such a lovely word. Always full of promise and hope.

If you missed reading the previous chapter, see Fleas and Other Things.