Look, I realize that a lot of the time you’re not sure if your pet’s situation is an emergency or not. If you call up and ask, we’re more than happy to tell you whether we think you should come right away or if you can probably wait till the morning to see your regular vet. Really, it’s no problem at all. That’s what we’re here for.
However, we’re a very busy trauma center, and we don’t have time for bullshit. We’ve got an entire room full of animals trying to die on us, plus various patients on the treat-and-street roster who need to be treated. The more of our time you waste with stupid bullshit, the harder it is for us to give our patients the appropriate care in a timely manner.
I don’t have time to give you the full details of the AVMA’s recommended vaccination and deworming protocols. No, we can’t fucking vaccinate your kitten tonight. You see, we’re an emergency room and we don’t even have vaccines in the building, because there’s no such fucking thing as an emergency vaccination. No, you dumbass, we can’t neuter or declaw your cat tonight either. Yes, I understand he’s driving you crazy, but that’s not an emergency procedure, and you’ll have to wait till in the morning and go to your vet.
Look, I don’t care where, or how, or why, you got a fucking prairie dog. I don’t even want to know why, after the dratted thing’s been sick for a motherfucking month, you’ve decided it’s an emergency at 1 in the morning. You’ve already told me all I need to hear. The thing’s probably got monkeypox, and if you’ve got the same sort of lesions, you need to go to the human emergency room. Oh, and you can’t bring it in because you can’t round up a cardboard box to carry it in. I see. If you can’t bring it in anyway, why are we having this conversation in the first place?
You have a what? A snail? And your son tore its shell off? No, there’s nothing you can do for it at home, and there’s nothing we could do for it here, either. Yes, I understand it looks awful and horrifying. Slugs are fucking gross, I’m with you on that one. Look, for the fifth time, it’s either going to secrete a new shell or it won’t. You can’t do anything for it either way. You know, I don’t think your kid’s nearly as upset as you seem to think. If it bothered the little beast that much, he wouldn’t have ripped the damn shell off in the first place, would he? No, neosporin probably won’t do a bit of good. Just put the damn snail outside before you get parasites from it, all right?
You’re dog’s in heat. No, we’re not spaying her tonight. Oh, wait, you don’t want her spayed. You want advice on getting your tomcat unstuck from her. This wouldn’t happen to be the same cat your Egyptian muskrat raped last week, would it? They’ve been stuck together for 3 days, you say. And you’re just now getting concerned? Oh, by all means, scoop them up in a blanket and bring them in. We’ll pry them apart with our unicorn horn, and get your dog out of heat with a quick sprinkle of pixie dust. 'Cause, you know, I don’t have two dogs with respiratory distress and three with seizures to keep an eye on. I have all night to give you advice on your fictitious problem, you donkey-raping twatknuckle.
I mean, for the love of God, the name of our business is the Animal Emergency and Trauma Center. I’d think that would be enough to tip people off that we’re not just standing around all night with our thumbs up our asses. We have blood to draw, radiographs to shoot, IV’s to start, prescriptions to pull up, and hospitalized animals to monitor. A lot of these animals are trying to die, and we need to be spending our time saving lives, not fielding bullshit phone calls.
