At about 2:30 yesterday afternoon...

...I got a phone call from the vet's office. They said that McFly was "ready to come home". I told them that I would be there as soon as I could get there.

The reason that I didn't leave right away is that I didn't have the money to pay the vet and I needed to see if I could figure something out. I couldn't. So, I just called the vet's office and asked to speak to the person in charge of bookkeeping or accounts. The chick who answered the phone said that she could help me.

I explained the situation and a more obnoxious, rude and unprofessional person, I have not met in a very, very long time. She mentioned the "estimate" that I was given the day I brought McFly in. No one said to me, "You have to pay this all when you pick the cat up.", but I knew that already. I've been going to that vet for years and I've always paid when I took the animals in. When they gave me the estimate, I said, "I can give you $50 today but that's all I have."

At the time, the lady who gave me the estimate said, "Oh, you don't have to give us anything today!" I wasn't too worried because they said that McFly would have to be there for 4 days and I was hoping that with 4 days to work on it, I could get the money together one way or another. Then, they called me the very next day to have me come pick McFly up. Needless to say, after spending the night at the emergency room with Stewie, I hadn't had the time to do anything about getting the money together.

My entire purpose for calling was to ask what I should do. I could have given them a post-dated check, signed a promissory note, given them my ID...whatever it took to take care of the situation. I hated to have to even ask, but I didn't know what else to do. And I can't believe that this situation has NEVER come up before...they have to have some procedure to follow. After I explained the situation to the person who answered the phone, I asked her what my options were. That's when she started to get ignorant. She just kept repeating that when they show a client the estimate, a promise is made at that point. They don't have to tell you that you just agreed to it, you don't have to sign anything and even if you tell them THEN that you don't have the money to pay for it and they STILL treat your animal...there's NO OTHER OPTION...I must now shit out a bunch of cash.

This is pretty much how the conversation went...over and over again:

"Usually people pay when they come in."

"I understand that, I always have, I'm just in a really bad situation financially right now and I just don't have the money. What can I do? You tell me."

"Well, how much can you give me?"

At that point I went online to check my checking account and the balances on my credit cards. I was trying to see how much I could pay her using whatever balances I had on different methods of payment. I wiped out 2 credit cards and left myself 12 bucks in my checking account and still, I could only come up with $80 out of a $213 bill. I told her that I would have the rest in a couple of weeks if not sooner. The 30 bucks that I gave her out of my checking account was for food and gas. It's a good thing I did get those damn Ramen Noodles...I'll be eating a LOT of them.

She responded, "When they gave you the estimate, you should have known then that we expected payment today." We had already been through that conversation and we went over it a few more times, the chick just wouldn't give it up. She sarcastically said, "You DO know what an estimate is, don't you?"

I wonder if she knows. It's an ESTIMATE...not a contract.

She pretty much just repeated the same things over and over again with a very nasty tone in that calm voice, even after I told her that there was no reason for her to be rude. And, rude she was. She said, "If you don't pay us the entire balance today, you can't bring ANY of your animals here until you pay the entire bill. I just hope that your animals don't get sick while you're trying to 'get your money together'" The implication was that if anything happened to any of my animals, it would be my fault. And the ENTIRE implication of her attitude was that I am a bum who doesn't pay my bills. The years that I've been doing business there be damned.

After about 10 minutes of her unprofessional attitude, I realized that the conversation wasn't going anywhere. She was repeating herself and I was trying to explain something to her that she just wasn't grasping. The last time I tried to get her to understand what I was saying, she said, "Now you're changing your story!" She was flat out accusing me of lying. As she started to go into her "people pay at the time of service" speech AGAIN...I just hung up on her and left to pick up McFly.

McFly looking at me instead of the camera when he got home yesterday.

McFly's favorite thing besides eating, having his neck scratched.

She was what I refer to as a "velvet hammer". She has this sugary sweet and happy voice and then the nastiest things come out of her mouth. And, as my luck usually goes, she was at the front desk when I walked in. I recognized her voice immediately. She was talking to someone back in the office as I was standing there at the window. She was chatting about personal stuff and ignoring me. She didn't even know who I was at that point. When she figured it out, she became downright rude. Every time I said a WORD...she looked at the other CUSTOMERS in the waiting room and rolled her eyes. She may not be the least professional person that I've ever met but she's certainly in the top two.

She said condescendingly, "I'll be with you in a minute, have a seat." I backed up to look at the pet stuff they had for sale but didn't I sit down. I didn't want to. When I'm nervous, I pace and I can't sit still. I've been nervous about so many things lately that I called my doctor and asked him if I could take 4 Xanax a day occasionally. He said that would be OK so if I need to, I can always take an extra pill.

The wench left me standing there for at least 10 minutes and then she called the person who came in AFTER me. I couldn't be nice anymore. I said, "You know I was here first and you're purposely taking someone in who came in 10 minutes after I did." Her response was something about me not sitting down when she asked me to.

Like I was a 2 year old, she said, "Are you ready to communicate with me now?" She was actually punishing me in the waiting room for some perceived transgression. She seemed overwhelmed with the power she wielded from behind her little wall window.

I walked up to the desk and handed her the credit cards. She never said another word. She ran the cards through and gave me the things to sign. I asked her if she wanted the originals and without saying a word, she grabbed them out of my hand. Then, a normal person brought McFly out. The wench chick was typing away and I assumed she was typing something for me. She let me stand right in front of her for 5 minutes without saying a word. Then, I finally asked if I was done.

She said, "You were done 5 minutes ago." That's when I asked her name so that I could write about her on my blog...her name is Elizabeth Walsh. She was behaving so smugly that she said she would be "happy" to give me her name and said that she "couldn't wait to read what I had to write" about her. Then, as I walked out the door I heard her chuckling loudly. So, here it is Miss Walsh, I hope you're still chuckling.

While I was standing there waiting like an idiot, I was reading the instructions that the normal lady had given me. I had a question that I wanted to ask about McFly. I wanted to know when he had gotten the last dose of Robaxin. Her answer shocked me. She said, "That's a question for the doctor." Then, she went back to typing and didn't ask for a doctor, the tech or even the chart so that she could answer my question.

So, I left the office owing $133. All that BS for a measly $133.

I can't possibly be the first person to have a bad experience with this nut. Either the office is aware of her behavior already or she hasn't been there long enough for it to happen yet, I just had the luck of being the first.

Then, within an hour or so of getting home, McFly started foaming at the mouth and twitching again. Miss Walsh had told me that I couldn't bring the animals back in so I didn't know what to do. My sister was over here so she called them to ask what could be done. No one said a word about the money that I owed, they just said to bring the cat back for another shot of Robaxin. My sister mentioned the financial concerns and they said that they would only be charging $15 for the shot. My sister had that much on her so she paid for it.

McFly an hour later, foaming at the mouth and starting to go into seizures again.

That clinic has been there for well over 40 years if not longer. One of the vets is the third or fourth generation of doctors to be in that building. I doubt that any vet (or any person at all for that matter) would be very pleased to hear one of his or her employees treating clients so poorly. When people spend more then 40 years building a reputation as a compassionate professional, the last thing they need is some obnoxious teenager treating the clients like dirt and refusing to answer medical questions about the patients who keep them in business.

What a stark contrast to the hospital that I took Stewie to the night before! They went out of their way to take care of Stewie knowing that I didn't have any money. The doctor at Town and Country Veterinary Clinic was the very picture of compassion. Unfortunately, the docs at The Veterinary Clinic may very well be as compassionate. But you'd never know it if you walked in and saw Elizabeth Walsh sitting at the front desk.

Miss Walsh, you said that you were "looking forward" to reading what I wrote. I hope that you didn't have to wait too long.

While my sister and I were busy taking care of McFly, Stewie and Payton relaxed and watched.