  More Details About Thomas' Death This afternoon, after a meeting with Ms. Stewart and others about Graduation, I called Elizabeth up and got her to take me out to the Rivergate Emergency Pet Clinic. I got out there and had to be buzzed in. When the lady asked what I wanted (because it wasn't business hours: 7 p.m. - 7 a.m.), I told her and she seemed kind of surprised at first because they weren't open when I told her that Thomas had been brought in ... hmm. I didn't think anything of it at the time, and she let me in and looked up to see if Thomas was there. Then, the lady told me that I might not be able to see him if they hadn't labeled his body in the freezer. So, she went in the back to see and I kinda paced around the waiting room. After a little time, she opened the door to Exam Room 1 and let me in. On the table was a thick brown plastic bag with a note on it that read "Donigan - Called To See Cat Will Come Later. " I started to feel tears welling up as she cut the bag open. The way she was cutting it open I thought she was just going to open enough for me to peek in and then tell me to leave or something. But, she was nice, and opened it enough to see all of Thomas. I stood there for a bit before I reached in to touch him and she said "I'll give you some time alone" and left the room.
The worst thing was that when she opened the bag and exposed his whole body, Thomas just looked like he was sleeping; he looked nice and warm and curled up in a ball like he'd done in my lap before ... I stayed in there for about ten minutes, just petting Thomas' head and just reflecting and stuff.
I was cryin' and stuff, y'all know. After these ten minutes passed, I kissed my hand, placed it on Thomas' body, looked at him one last time and then walked out the door. Before I left the room, I tried to compose myself but when the lady said that she was "real sorry" I started to choke up again and tried to tell her the strongest "thank you" but it just kinda bubbled out with some tears.
Then, I had to get back into the car with my sister and her friend for the ride back home. For the first five minutes on the ride, neither of them knew what to do/say so we sat just listening to the radio primarily. Where's My Shotgun? When I got dropped off at home, I was walking along the sidewalk to the stairs to my house and I noticed that Mr. Shelby (my neighbor two houses down) was waiting to turn in his driveway for a long time. I stopped and watched as these two little black boys (approximate ages 14 and 9) pull their black and white pit bull out of his driveway where it was bothering Mr. Shelby's neighbor's dogs. I just stood there in shock until I realized that this meant that something was going to be done about the problem because Mr. Shelby had become involved(!). Later, when I was mowing the lawn, I saw in better detail all the places where our dogs have broken the fence down because of being agitated by pits on the other side of the fence, up my driveway at least 50-60 feet. I also noted at least three places where a dog had shat* in my driveways. Now, I find that highly insulting: First, these assholes own pit bulls. Second, these assholes are training their pits to be fighters. Third, these assholes are baiting their dogs against mine, who might lose a fight against more than one pit bull. Fourth, these assholes have allowed one of their dogs to kill my cat. Fifth, these assholes are not only walking in a definate private driveway, they are allowing their dogs to shit in my damned yard . That's the biggest slap in the face if I ever saw one. You kill my animals and allow the killers to shit in my yard.
Damn these people Action On a more positive note, the community is semi-mobilizing to take out these sorry excuses for human beings. Mr. Shelby called Larry (neighborhood association president) about the dogs in his driveway this afternoon and Larry called my mom tonight but ended up talking to me for about five or nine minutes. I told him my plan of setting up a sting operation of taking a bunch of pictures of these assholes walking training their dogs in my yard and then having them to show Metro Codes or Police.
Also, I'm going to pick up a "No Trespassing" sign because without one, you can't file trespassing charges against someone. And don't get me started about the stupidity of that law ... Goodbye, High School Well, today was my last full day of high school. And, guess where I spent it ... in class? No! I spent it dealing with supposedly "grown" people and trying to fit close to 150 people on the small stage at school. We finally worked out a deal allowing both the band and choir to have their full memberships (67 and 42 members, respectively). The best part of it was a few of us spending most of the day planning how to build a curtain behind what's already there in order to make the stage large enough to fit the entire choir, entire band and entire faculty on stage for graduation. The compromise we worked out was that the band would be on stage, in full, along with the faculty split along the left and right sides of the stage with the choir singing from the floor in front of the stage. Well, I'm gonna go to bed now and be ready to go to school about 9:00 a.m. tomorrow to voluntarily clean the auditorium for Graduation because right now it looks like shit. G'night. Shat - verb, past tense.
to shit 
