One of
the advantages of gaining wisdom (it
ain’t polite to say “getting old”) is that incredible
earth-shaking ideas occur
to a guy that make his grandchildren look at him funny.
Now this one I
can’t claim any original
credit for because it was thrust upon me many decades ago when
I was working
for a veterinarian and going to college and majoring in girls,
preferably slow
girls (not show girls).
It was fun
working for the vet. Nice guy and
great sense of humor (“Sometimes I feel like beating every
(name of popular
breed) with engineer’s overalls so they’ll chase trains.”)
Occasionally we’d
get in an animal that was beyond help and it was time to “put
him to sleep.”
Sounds better than … well, you know. So
when the young mother with three small children and a
cardboard box walked in,
all of them crying like the end of the world, we hustled to
see what the
problem was.
Inside the cardboard
box was a
still-barely-alive jackrabbit that this woman had accidently
hit with her car.
But the rabbit looked more like he had tried to cross the race
track for the
Indy 500 and no one had missed.
The doctor
looked at me solemnly and said,
“Slim, can you bring me about this much K.H.O. please?” I went
to fill the
syringe while he broke the terrible news to this family. The
real name for
K.H.O. was Euthasol, and was a permanent pain ender, right?
But our vet
referred to it as K.H.O., which was vet speak for Knock Him
Off.
Life seemed so
much simpler then. And we
only laughed when we were alone.
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Remember
homeless bunnies in your will. Contact the Eternal Carrot
Society at membership@rabbit.org,
to learn how easy it is. This is not a joke.