Dear Santa: Your elves have shitty valium.

I thought about describing my pill-popping Christmas by going into great detail about my mental disintegration after the vet “accidentally” killed Llama (with valium, no less). I would describe the ever-increasing emotional hysteria, culminating in an office meltdown of epic proportions. Then on to the brief but stern admonishment from my boss regarding throwing sharp projectile objects in spaces that might be occupied by other humans. My story would end when a sympathetic coworker popped open a bottle of valium and force fed three orange pills down my throat, which left me comatose and slightly drooly. After which I was fired for my unsatisfactory conduct.**

But then I realized not everyone finds me amusing. Plus, this is the holiday season, and whether you sing that crazy dradle song or the one about a baby in a poop-filled barn, most deities hate liars, especially blatant ones. And while I definitely cried, okay, sobbed, on the phone with my mother after the vet called with his bad news, I wouldn’t describe my emotional state as unstable. Pissed off would be far more realistic. And maybe just a little sad. Oh, and guilty. See below:

By the time I finally managed to call the vet back, it was late afternoon. I’d spent my morning within the bowels of a hospital eating eggs laced with nuclear matter and reclining under what appeared to be a giant black drum. While it’s inordinately uncomfortable for me to lie perfectly still for any length of time, this was by far the most enjoyable portion of my day. Possibly because I hadn’t been able to eat anything since 9pm the night before and I’m not one of those kids who forget to eat. Forget my keys, maybe. Eating, never. As such, those nuclear eggs were like manna from heaven.

The only moderately cool thing from that whole ordeal was watching the little nuclear bits hang out in my stomach. They kind of resembled very busy microscopic ants with a tendency to stay in a giant dotty cluster. I’m using the word ‘cool’ very loosely, because while it was neat in that ‘look at my innards!’ kind of way, I’ll be the first to admit that I have very irrational semi-fears about things. Mostly they involve aliens, alien babies and bird noises. My greatest fear would have me standing next to a long-armed alien while I birthed his alien spawn from my stomach, all while they communicated via bird noises. So it shouldn’t have come as any great surprise that while watching the little nuclear bits move around in my abdominal cavity, the Crazy part of my brain was all “You know that’s how they breed, don’t you? The eggs are merely a vehicle for their alien spawn. Look at them on the screen- invading every molecule of your body. You’re going to be the Mary for the bug-eyed alien race.”

The non-crazy part of my brain, the one that deals frequently with my overactive and slightly paranoid imagination, responded by sighing in resignation. “You’re going to write about this on the internet, aren’t you? This is not how you get boys to make out with you.”

However, I’m going to blame low blood sugar on the brief (but stunning) coup by Crazy Brain. I’m quite aware that nuclear matter does not equal alien babies and should the previous admission diminish anyone’s desire to make out with me, I’m deeply sorry.

Following my nuclear morning, I was sent to another hospital building for a CAT scan. This wasn’t nearly as amusing as the egg test, mainly because I had to drink a gallon of pink Crystal Light infused with some unidentifiable substance. I was not to drink it too quickly, however, because it would make me nauseated. I nodded my head in acknowledgement when the nurse told me this, then informed her that everything makes me nauseated so this should be wicked exciting.

The scan itself wasn’t anything to write home about, with the exception of whatever drug was injected into the vein in my right arm. After the technician left the room, her voice came over the intercom and told me that I would probably feel like I was wetting myself and that my pelvis would feel abnormally warm. Personally, I feel that this is the sort of information that should be shared before the drug injection. But hey, who’s judging?

Now that I’ve run through my six hours of hospital visiting, you can understand why it took me five and a half hours to return the message left by my vet. I thought it was just a normal update on the declawing and shot-giving for The Demonspawn. Maybe letting me know that they were resting comfortably, ready for pickup after 5pm. Unbeknownst to me, Llama was definitely resting comfortably. In a fucking body bag. He’d died when the nurse had injected the kitty cat valium into his hind leg. Dropped dead right on the table, the vet said. I got to hear about that ‘dropping dead’ part about eight or nine times, which is exactly the mental image you want of your pet. Right next to the one of an ice-encrusted ball of fluff inside the confines of a plastic ziploc bag. Because I’d taken so long to return his call, he said, they’d had to put him in the freezer. To halt decomposition. Again, THANKS FOR THAT MENTAL IMAGE, ASSHOLE.

So I drove across town to pick up Lily, because one pet death was really all I could handle. Had I ingested more than Crystal Light and nuclear eggs that day, I probably would have had the energy to disembowel the vet like I envisioned on my drive over. But hunger and sadness hand rendered me weak, and instead I just held Lily’s furry little body to my chest and cried silently all the way home. Feeling like a horrible cat-mother for sending them off for an unnecessary procedure, just to save my new couch from frenzied clawing. Feeling horrible and heartless for shoving a normally docile Llama into his cat carrier, clawing and hissing all the way. Feeling even guiltier for thinking, over and over, you had to kill my favorite one, didn’t you?


Oh, and before you think I was kidding about the elves making shitty valium, I’m totally not. Tomorrow I promise to tell you how I made contact with the aliens via the radio transmitter implanted in my esophagus. And no, I’m not kidding. At least about the radio transmitter. The alien part is up for interpretation.

** Just so we're clear, I'm not terminated. Nor did I have a hissy fit and throw objects at humans. I did let a tear or twelve slip out when everyone at work stopped by to hug me, and it was all very Terms of Endearment-y.