yeah idk

(when the managers’ backs were turned i was taught to leave the trashbags of bread behind the dumpster rather than inside it, because it was locked after everyone left to prevent people from stealing from it. we would say we were going out to stack chairs and instead stack prepackaged salads prepared that morning in the narrow space between wall and dumpster, but that’s not what this is about.)

we were working valentine’s day, a little bit miserable about it, because customers are somehow worse on a holiday about love ,and even if we were single we didn’t want to be here, and most of us had people we’d rather be spending the day with, and the snappish, hardass manager was working that day, and everyone could not wait for the day to be over. 

we had a boxes of those bakery tissue sheets around and i was twisting it in my hands and i thought about how the first night my uncle spent with my aunt he had to get up early for work but didn’t want to wake her and the whole thing hadn’t been planned, exactly, so he (a roofer by trade and a golden glove boxer by sport) went into the kitchen and took some paper towels and twisted them between his big, scarred hands until it formed a sweeter shape and when my aunt work up it was to a paper towel rose on her pillow. 

so i used a couple sheets of bakery tissue to make a rose and walked up to my coworker who stared at me with a rictus smile and i gave it to her, trying not overthink if it was a weird thing to do. her smile slipped and she asked “you made this?” holding it carefully, like it wasn’t something her two year old son could have made with his pudgy hands, and i shrugged and got more milk from the back. 

then another coworker held the steamer too long when frothing milk, not on accident but because he was irritated, so i rolled another rose and tucked it in his apron pocket as i walked by. then it was just one more of us up front and it was nothing, thirty seconds of twisting paper to take the stack of cookies out of her hands and hand her a tissue paper rose, her lined face lifting into a grin as she proudly tucked it into the chest pocket of her shirt and i may as well have been standing in front of the ovens for how hot my face felt. 

it was such a silly thing to do, i felt ridiculous, giving away hastily constructed tissue paper roses on valentine’s day, clumsy artful garbage. then one of the servers walked by and noticed and so i made her one too, and then other servers came by, leaning over the glass, and complimenting the flowers with big eyes, and i laughed and made more, still not sure if it was sincere, but even if it wasn’t, i figured making them one and handing it over was better than saying no. 

then i went to the back again and the dishwasher yelled out “where”s mine? what about us?” and he was too sweet to ever be anything less than sincere, so someone kept an eye on the door to the manager’s office as i stood in the sweltering kitchen and rolled clumsy tissue paper roses, enough for everyone 

and by the time the day ended, everyone had one, everyone wore one, tucked in their shirt or their apron or stuck in their hair or taped to the top of their pen. everyone was a little less miserable, smiling like we were all on in on the joke, although i don’t think any of us knew the punchline 

Every one of us relies on water from the wells, because mankind has polluted all the lakes and rivers. but do you know why the well water is pure? It’s because the trees of the wastelands purify it! And you plan to burn the trees down? You must not burn down the toxic jungle! You should have left the giant warrior beneath the earth!

“A variety of wild animals visiting a water fountain”

Cats were boxed down when I was 16 and started as a kennel technician.

They were boxed down when I was in veterinary school.

And they are still being boxed down in practices that are committed to a WAY higher standard of medicine than this. It has been accepted for so long we don’t think about it. But there are better options and no reason to do this anymore.

https://fearfreepets.com/boxing-down-the-wrong-choice-for-animals-and-people/

Everything about the way we approach cats has to be cat friendly - the waiting area has a separate area for cats, along with hidey holes to place the cat carriers in so they feel more secure. All staff are trained in cat friendly handling techniques and scruffing is essentially forbidden, except for in a situation where the cat is going to seriously harm itself or others (even then, it’s shied away from). Cat behaviour etc is also taught to both clinical and non-clinical staff. We have separate feline wards/prep/operating rooms.

We would never DREAM of using inhalant anaesthesia to knock out a cat patient (literally only small furries or birds end up in the gas chamber and that’s usually for pre-euthansia. Even exotic patients get injectable anaesthesia before inhalant anaesthesia 95% of the time).

It takes some getting used to if you’re not from somewhere that does all of this normally (I wasn’t) but I’ve seen both and doing as many things as “cat friendly” as possible genuinely does make such a difference for feline patients.

This is the vet / nurse area of the cat friendly practice website if anyone is interested!

Tsuritama