SCRUGGS
and SAMANTHA
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER THE DECISION--BUREAUCRACY AT
ITS WORST
(10th installment of Scruggs and Samantha,
How
a Shelter Dog and Kitten Saved Cinderella’s Marriage)
Having made the decision that
Scruggs was coming home with me, I thought the difficult part of adopting a
needy animal was over. After all, I had
just suffered through my own personal hell of walking the aisles of cages,
coaxing and cajoling animals to respond, and looking into the eyes of too many
animals while seeing hopelessness and death written on their faces. I had persevered and made my choices; the
rest wasn’t supposed to be that hard.
Easy as pie, I thought.
So, okay, for those of you who have actually made a
pie, is it really all that easy? I’ve
tried to make crust from scratch. I did
all the things my grandmother did, except I actually measured the flour and the
salt and the shortening. She never
did. My Grandmother Carrie never
measured anything when she cooked. She
would grab a couple of handfuls of flour, scoop out shortening with a wooden
spoon, pinch some salt into the bowl, and mix it all with her fingers. Then she threw it on a floured bread board,
swiped it a few times with a rolling pin, and voilà, pie crust. Better yet, it always seemed to fit the glass
pie pan she used. It was easy for her.
For me, not so much.
Where my grandmother’s crusts were always flaky and delicious, mine
resembled browned cardboard.
But I wasn’t making a pie, I was adopting animals. I was saving a life! I was blessed by God, and His angels would
pave the way for me. Unfortunately, my
angels must have been on their lunch break.
Adopting the animals turned out to be like making a pie
crust. Success was not a foregone
conclusion.
As I waited in the interminable line, I watched the four
staff members in t-shirts as they worked to perfect their bureaucratic
demeanor. There were two younger women
who frowned, scowled, and sniffed their way through the steady stream of
anxious people standing in line. In my mind I dubbed them “Precious Princess
One” and “Precious Princess Two”. They
were too young and too pretty and obviously used the power of those two
strengths to their complete advantage.
Nothing about them exuded humility or affability. The lone male was a young man who refused to
make eye contact, keeping his head down as he answered the phones and tapped
information into his computer. A fourth
attendant, a slightly older woman, worked the phones at the other end of the
counter from the young man. Her tone was
soft, her words muffled. Watching them
work, I felt panic again creep up my spine as a drama began to unfold in front
of me.
A gray-haired African-American woman hobbled up to the
counter, and rested her cane against its top.
She handed a ticket to Precious Princess One, a dark-eyed brunette, who
flipped her hair and rolled her eyes, barely concealed disrespect coloring her
voice as she answered the questions of people seeking her help.
I held my breath as Precious Princess One reached for the
ticket.
“I got this ticket
for my son’s dogs running loose,” said the gray-haired woman. “They all tell me I got to get them
shots. I can’t afford no shots.”
The girl flipped her dark brown hair over her shoulder and
sighed a bored sigh as she took the ticket from the outstretched hand. “We have low-cost vaccinations here at the
shelter,” she said. “You’ll have to make
an appointment.”
“Can I make an appointment then?” asked the woman.
“All of the August and September appointments are full,” the
girl said, not making eye contact.
“But I have to go to court and show I licensed the dogs on
September thirteenth,” the woman answered, obviously looking for some help.
“We can’t license your dogs without a certificate showing
they have been vaccinated,” the girl said, still not looking up toward the
woman to whom she was speaking.
“But I told you,” the woman said, “I don’t have the money
for the shots and I have to have them licensed before I go to court.”
“Ma’am,” the girl said, again sighing, “we don’t have any
appointments open until October, and we don’t start taking appointments until
mid-September for October.”
“But I need to get the dogs licensed now!” the woman said,
exasperation clearly coloring the tone of her voice.
“Ma’am,” the girl said, finally looking at the woman, “You
don’t need to use that tone with me. You
need to have your dogs vaccinated and proof of them being spayed or neutered
before I can issue them a license.”
“Spayed or neutered,” the woman said, now nearing
panic. “I don’t have a certificate
showing they are neutered. Can’t you
just look at them and tell that?”
“Ma’am,” the girl said, using her most officious voice, “I
warned you about your tone. I am not
going to help you if you continue to use that tone with me.”
Tone my eye! From
what I could see, the girl’s attitude was the problem. From where I was
standing, the woman with the tickets for the dogs was asking all the right
questions. I couldn’t believe that this
girl was accusing her of using a “tone.”
Had it been me, I would have been tempted to reach over the counter and
tell Precious Princess One that she was speaking to a woman twice her age and
should use a little respect. It was
clear the older woman was trying to do the right thing but was getting no help
from the person charged with assisting her. But I also recognized it would be a
stand-off if the woman at the counter did not get some help. So I stepped in to see what I could do to
assist her.
“Here, Ma’am,” I said, “Can I see your ticket?”
Precious Princess One rolled her eyes at me and
sniffed. “Next!” she said as she turned
away from both of us.
The ticket had the older woman going to the local courthouse
to appear before a commissioner with whom I was familiar. He was a reasonable person, wanting only for
people to act responsibly. He would be
sensitive to this woman’s needs.
“Here’s what you do,” I said, handing back the ticket to
her. “Go to court and tell the commissioner that you tried to license your dog,
but you need more time to make an appointment with the low-cost vaccination
clinic. Ask him for a ‘continuance’ to
comply. Also, you might try some of the
local pet stores. Occasionally, they
have low-cost clinics. You might inquire
there.”
“So why didn’t that sassy-pants tell me that?” the woman
asked, jutting her chin toward the girl behind the counter.
A voice from behind the counter
piped in with, “Ma’am, I told you all that.”
Seeing that a fight was
beginning to erupt, I took the woman gently by the shoulder and steered her out
of the office. Once outside the woman’s
shoulder’s began to slump.
“They’re my grandson’s dogs,”
she said. “And, if they get taken away,
it will break his heart. I told my son
to take care of it, but he doesn’t have the time. He’s working two jobs as it is.”
I made some murmuring sounds at her and gave her one of my
business cards.
“Call me if you have trouble, okay?” I said. “If nothing else, tell the bailiff you spoke
with me at the shelter and I told you what to do. He’s a good man and he’ll tell the judge.”
With
that, the woman hobbled away, shoulders still slumped.
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