“Success consists of going from failure to failure 
without loss of enthusiasm.”

~ Winston Churchill.

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I managed to go to the gym a further two times this week.  It’s no longer a novel idea that from time to time I might subject myself to a bit of exercise.  I didn’t quite manage to make it to today’s 9.30am Body Attack class though.  I woke up at 9 o’clock to a text message from my cousin, who was in the next bedroom: ‘cbf gym’. Barely awake, I replied ‘Hahaha’ before rolling over again, only to wake up at eleven. Motivation fail.

Mitzi

Since then, it’s been a day of failures.  I accompanied Cat, my aforementioned cousin, to the vet; she with Mitzi on a lead and me with Peanut the rat scurrying around in my now urine-covered, excrement-filled cardigan (failure #2).  As soon as I entered the vet’s room and inhaled the aromatic mixture of old dog and clinical disinfectant, I knew it wasn’t going to go well.  

The last time I went to the vet was in 2004, with my little Westie – ironically named Scottie – for his routine vaccinations.  I hate needles, and it seems Scottie did as well.  Before the vet had managed to finish injecting him, he had jumped off the table and begun to run around the tiny room, the half-full syringe still clinging to the back of his neck.  By the time the vet had caught him and properly administered the jab, she had to deal with me as a second patient, pale and light-headed, slumped in a chair trying to remove the image of my dog’s red-stained white fur from my mind. 

Peanut, on the right

Mitzi was shaking as Cat lifted her onto the table.  I sat in the corner and distracted myself with Peanut, telling myself there would be no repeat of last time.  Still, I couldn’t help but watch while the vet gave Mitzi her injection, although I shuddered at the sight of the needle.  The vet carried out a few more checks on Mitzi before turning her attention to Peanut, who had a bit of a scabby tail. 

Peanut's tail

I stood up to carry Peanut to the table, proud that I had endured the ordeal with no signs of nausea. The vet told us that the tip of Peanut’s tail was merely dead matter. Sure enough, it fell into the vet’s hand as she tugged it. Easy!  But wait. Peanut started to run around the table, flicking her tail against the vet’s top, and a tiny streak of blood appeared on the pale blue of her scrubs.  I breathed deeply, but then I saw another thin trail of blood on the table, and the bright red circles increasing in number on the tissue in the vet's hand.  Game Over. 

Soon the bleeding stopped and it was time to go home. I sat in the waiting room while Cat sorted out the bill, leaning my head against the wall behind me.  No use.  I put Peanut down on the chair beside me and leaned forward, just as mum had always told me to when I was younger.  “You ready to go?” Cat asked. “Mmhmm,” I replied, standing up, before changing my mind. “I don’t feel so good.”  Damn right, I didn’t feel so good, otherwise I would have used the adverb, “I don’t feel so well.”  Failure #3.

I sat back in the chair, while Catherine went next door to buy a Coke and some food.  Soon I felt better, and was able to make it back to the car. I placed my half-empty can of coke (it would be ‘half-full’, but today warrants no optimism) on the dashboard as I tucked Peanut into my cardigan on my seat, and then perched myself in front of her.  I turned to pat Mitzi in the back seat, and Cat got in and began to move off, while saying things such as “You are so useless, Megan.”  We’d barely made it out of the car park when – prepare for Fail #4 – my forgotten coke slid off the dashboard and into my lap, right onto my brand new jeans.

At least things looked up during the second half of the day.  Cat, our Aunty Leonie and I had a bit of a girly nail painting session, and Cat made the ultimate comfort food for dinner.  Thanks, Cat! Success.

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