Career Day turned out pretty decently. Of course I thought my material would last the full half hour but no, I was done in 5 minutes. I brought a bunch of brochures from the other agents in my office and had the kids pick which house they wanted to buy. Then I had them sign a fake contract. The funniest part was they agreed to buy a houseboat. Yes, I know, where can you get a houseboat in DC? At the waterfront! Where the houseboats are!
Tonight was the school’s annual auction and moms were telling me their little ones were happy to get a gift bag. I mean, look, when all you’re going in with are some sales brochures and a career day idea that you didn’t even practice-run, you have to bribe the kids with something. So company swag it was. A balloon with a logo, a sticky note pad with, you guessed it, our logo, and a bunch of pencils the kids could choose.
Then we sailed away on our houseboat.
Ok, no we didn’t.
Another part of my life is corgi-rescue related. This week we were working on getting a bunch of dogs out of various shelters in Texas. This part of Texas where we were working lies somewhere between rural and deserted. There are like three people in the town and now I know them all.
The shelter recommended a foster home and a transport. I can’t even express the ridiculousness that happened with this Prince and Princess. This is why animals die every day in shelters. Because crazy people who are probably mentally ill are involved in most of the animal world. The Texas foster home took the dog to the vet and went from “Don’t worry about paying me, let’s wait until all the vetting is done,” to “WHERE IS MY CHECK?? I HAVE NEVER BEEN TREATED SO POORLY BY A RESCUE. I AM ON DISABILITY AND PAID OUT OF MY OWN POCKETTTTTT!”
I legit mailed the check. It’s just unfortunate she lives in literally the middle of nowhere, and the ponies probably hadn’t gotten to that route yet. Then we got hooked up with a transport. Then this happened.
1) The transporter calculated that the trip from South Texas to Hagerstown, Maryland would take him 24 hours. I googled for the time and distance. It said 23 hours and 40 minutes. So this guy was planning to only stop for a total of 20 minutes for the entire trip? To include stops to pee, eat and get gas?
2) The foster threatened to keep the dog if she didn’t get her money. Then she said she was going to charge us a per day boarding charge.
3) Then I got mad she was threatening us and I may or may not have messaged her the following: “Foster? Go fuck yourself.”
4) Then she clutched her pearls.
5) Then the shelter manager got involved (because I called her regarding the holding of our dog hostage) and she said the foster was mad because someone used “ugly language” with her. I proudly said it was me. She said, “You don’t curse to a Jehovah’s Witness.” Hmm. Now probably isn’t the best time to argue my distaste of religion. And on the swearing? Please. My parents are in their 80’s and they use the F-word like it’s going out of style. Plus, I won Best Potty Mouth Award from my company. I’m very proud of that award.
6) Then we all got on to a text and the transporter said we were all drama and he would leave the dog in Texas and never transport for us again.
7) When I was about to tell all of these people go go scratch, the transporter forgot that the shelter manager and the foster were both on the text and he called them both crazy. Transporter proves himself to be a total lunatic. We all ask WTF we have gotten ourselves into.
8) The foster and the shelter manger both responded. More drama. Why won’t everyone shut up and do what’s best for this dog??? Oh. Right. Egos and Money, that’s what rescue is all about.
9) Dog finally arrives at the transport location and rides from Texas to Maryland.
10) Receiving foster (one of our board members) sends us this message: “So I meet the transporter today and crazy son of a bitch has a big gash on his forehead and it’s bleeding. He totally ignores the issue and practically throws the dogs at me.”
Dogs. DOGS? You want to know why I only mentioned one dog this whole time and there were multiple who arrived? Well, yes, the transporter decided to drop his dog on us too.
Lesson learned from this exercise: Texas shelters all love to say the dog is on the table about to be euthanized unless someone steps up. That’s their claim to fame. It’s not Billy Bob’s. It’s their ability to state with a straight face that the dog is about to be killed. Right. Now.
