Precipitation, caffeine, and flying squirrels

One Spring, I went to Seattle for an exotic animal rotation during my veterinary schooling. Very nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I know everybody says that all the time, you'd think it was a cliche or something, but it's true! Seattle, where the skies the bluest blue.... never! It's so easy to be a weatherman in Seattle. "Today will be overcast with a 100% chance of some sort of showers." They tape the segments weeks in advance.

It rained.... every day! And I mean everyday. It rains so much that moss grows on the sidewalks. Not just in the cracks... on the center of the sidewalks. It rains so much, and moss grows on the sidewalks so much, that homeless teenagers... you know the ones that run out from between alleys, begin assaulting your windshield with a bent, ratty squee-gee soaked in ass juice, and then demand money for "cleaning" it... well, they're called Moss Kids. It rains so much, that the previous winter had just been 97 days of straight rain, with isolated pockets of deaths due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. Seattle, in a nutshell, is a whole city that relies on the invention of the umbrella.

Oh, and coffee. In fact, I should have said "Seattle, in a coffee bean..." a few sentences back. That's a big necessity in Seattle. "COFFEE! Who took my coffee? Where's my coffee? Fuck it, gimme some grounds, (grizzle, grazzle, crunch) Ahhhh, much better." I had never before seen so much coffee in one place. The birthplace of the kudzu-like, demon-spawn know as Starbucks.

However, Seattle was big on coffee before that I'm sure. When settlers moved there, they could only envision a paradise where they could ride their wagon up alongside a tiny little stand that served fresh brewed coffee. Lo and behold, there dream came true. Any little bit of unused space in a parking lot... has a drive-thru coffee shop. They look like tiny photomats on caffeine. They would usually go supernova, because it is physically impossible to cram the average Seattlites necessary coffee into an area that small. Einstein theorized, and Stephen Hawkings proved it... go look it up. In fact, Hawkings was working in one at a most inopportune time... Ya know, I don't know why I even try with the references?!? Maybe you should go back to Nelly Furtado dancing awkwardly sexy to her song inspired by Fergie from The Black-Eyed Peas... oh, that reference you get, huh?

Anyway, coffee, coffee, coffeecoffeecoffee!!! I was actually in a Border's that had a Starbucks Corner on the third floor. On the first floor as I exited, there was a Full Service Bookstore Starbucks. I walked outside and twenty feet across an alleyway was a Self-Sufficient Starbucks. I began crying blood and a rain of fire fell upon everyone around. It was the Apocalypse... you may have read about it in the papers?

We've established Seattle is filled with rain and coffee, and could only be even crazier if it rained coffee, but what does that have to do with me Nothing except that I was there for 3 weeks. Long time. Lotsa rain. Rode my bike from my hotel room to the veterinary clinic that I was working at, 6 days a week. Was sopping wet half the time.

So, about the clinic. It was a pretty small place. The veterinarian was Dr. Skip. I have to believe that wasn't his real name, but I'll never know. He was a former marine, and yet was surprisingly nice and calm. The rest of the staff said that he had definitely mellowed with age, and that if I had been there not three years ago, that I would have most likely have pissed myself a little, dropped a duece in my pants, and quite possibly even a quattro... I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded twice as scary as a duece.

The receptionist up front was strangely enough, male. Now not to be sexist, but it is strange. When was the last time you went anywhere and the receptionist was male. Especially a non-senior male, possibly in his late 40's, with a thick British accent, and the dirtiest mind and nature in the world. This guy was like a sexist Benny Hill?

So there we were Dr. Skip, Roger- the British receptionist letch, the other male staff member, and myself. And as an important part of this story, there was a camera up front, so the staff in back could know when someone was at the front desk.

One day, we are all standing in back, waiting for appointments to show up, when Roger comes running into the back. He turns our attention to the TV screen and wants us all to stare and drool over the busty, brunette client that just walked in. Now the other guys made some of the most disgusting comments that you can think about. I won't reprint them her, to save your precious ears. After all, my blog is family oriented... umm, yeah, whatever. But I was not partaking, mostly because this woman was about as attractive as Pamela Anderson. That might sound strange to the majority of men, but not very attractive to me. Another reason is while it may not seem like it, I'm kind of a wholesome guy. I may look at someone who I find attractive (and doesn't everybody) but I don't mentally defile or make lewd comments. Yet another reason is that they would be empty threats. I know that I am too much of a chicken shit. (NOTE: This is what's called foreshadowing)

After Dr. Skip had the blood return to his brain and vital organs, and placed a reorder of his prescription of Viagra, we went into the room for her appointment. She stated that she was moving to Las Vegas to continue to pursue her dancing career... [cough] most likely exotic... [cough] stripper [cough] excuse me... and she needed her sugar glider to be checked over for the trip.

Now before you make some sort of strange allusion to female genitalia, a sugar glider is a small, gliding marsupial. Australia's equivalent of the flying squirrel. They actually make horrible pets, because they are nocturnal and need a lot of social and sexual contact. If you just get one, especially a male, it will most likely mutilate its penis from constant manual and oral masturbation. Much like Dr. Skip and Roger.

Anyway, she unsheathed it from its pouch and cradled it in her hands. No stop it! Does it look like there's a picture of Fabio on the cover of my blog? She was about to hand it over to good ole Dr. Skip, when it jumped from her palms, onto her shoulder, crawled around her back, and underneath her sweater. It made itself comfy in the small of her back, just out of reach of her hands. There she is grabbing and reaching, trying to get it. Arching her back, thrusting her chest. I believe I saw a single tear roll down Dr. Skip's cheek. He looked ever-so-happy.

That abruptly changed when the large, fake-breasted client said, "I can't reach him. You'll have to get him Dr. Skip." The man looked like he had been hit by a truck. He was scared out of his gourd. He glanced over at me with wide eyes, behind which I'm sure his mind was screaming, "What in the Hell do I do. Oh my GOD!" Performance anxiety if I ever saw it. I just shrugged my shoulders. He glared back at me, knowing that I would obviously be no help.

And before this sounds too much like a letter to the Penthouse Forum, I'll just let you know that everything was easily resolved. Dr. Skip merely reached under the sweater and gently removed the sugar glider from it stranglehold on the client's brastrap. Overall, I thought it was a brilliant example of the fact that the guys who talk all the shit are usually just full of it. (NOTE: See, that's the moral that I was foreshadowing)