The kids and I have been watching a show called Critter Fixers on Disney+. It is set in a veterinary clinic a hundred miles south of Atlanta, where two black men own a vet clinic. Part of what I enjoy about the show is their relationship. One is a little older and a little more sedate, and the other never seems to stop joking around. Pete said, "Mom, he's like you if your goofy streak was activated 100% of the time." They laugh, they diagnose and treat, they laugh some more.
They see a surprising variety of animals, which is part of the fun: wild turtles, whopping snakes, a chinchilla in need of an amputation, a bulldog in need of a C-section, a donkey in need of less testosterone, a cluster of alpacas in need of pregnancy confirmations. I also love the sense of place, the way they talk about their alma mater and their part of the world.
The kids do not enjoy this show quite as much as I do, because the gross factor is indisputable. Tonight they exteriorized a cat's bladder and talked at length about how angry it looked, and they showed exactly how the vet removed three stones approximately the size of ping-pong balls. (Hold the phone, I just typed ping-pong into the browser bar to confirm hyphenation, and the internet wants me to know that ping-pong is also called whiff-whaff. Have you ever heard of whiff-whaff? Is this regional? Or is it a disinformation campaign at Wikipedia? Whiff-whaff, hmph.) They are not romanticizing the work that the vets do; there are plenty of shots of people up to their shoulders in animal orifices.
But if you share my interest in bodies' inner workings, you might like seeing what goes on in their lively and diverse clinic. Weirdly, the hard part for me is not the scenes where they are removing maggots. Instead I feel a little sad every time they hug their clients, which is a thing they frequently do. SOMEDAY we will be able to hug our veterinarians again if we choose to do so.
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