It’s Time For Mr. Stripey Pants To Come In For A Visit!, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Right after I did the piece on postcards and letter writing, this arrived for Mr. Stripey Pants — a personal note from Dick Van Dyke himself (did you know Mr. Van Dyke was born in Missouri?). I remember Dick Van Dyke most for The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Poppins, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But why is he writing to Mr. Stripey Pants?
Well, it’s time for Pants to go in for his Senior Exam. It’s true what Mary Poppins says — a spoonful of sugar really does helps the medicine go down. But Pants doesn’t mind the vet. It’s Chaco who gets freaked out.
Anyway, as Mr. Stripey Pants prepares for the fall elections, we’ll be taking him in for his Senior Exam. He’ll be 11 years old in November. And when cats start to age, it’s more important than ever to catch things early.
But what about this mail thing? Pets are becoming so important in our electronic (and increasingly isolated) day-to-day lives, that we’re receiving slick, 4-color magazines as appointment reminders from veterinarians. But is it really right that Mr. Stripey Pants receives more personal mail than I do?
Mr. Stripey Pants Goes Postal, Pants preparing to read his mail from Dick Van Dyke, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2008, all photos © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, September 7th, 2008
Not only do my cats get lovely reminders from their vet, but they also get Birthday Cards!!!! Also notes from their pet insurance provider and from their mail order food supplier. Seriously, since I have signed up for about every junk mail blocker out there, they now get more mail than I do 🙂
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Oh, goddess, does this mean we can expect yet another card for Pants in November when he turns 11! I’ll wait to tell him until after the vet visit. Something to look forward to. 8)
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You should send them a cute letter back . . .
Dr. Mr(s). Vet Person With Cold Hands,
I received your recent unsolicited publication and promptly peed on it. Please find it in the enclosed envelope.
Mr. Stripey Pants
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Pants sure seems to get maximum pleasure from his reading – the sights, textures and taste, even the sounds? My General rarely gets mail, and never such exotic mail. I’ll have to chat up our vet about improving his method of communicating with the General – those terse “General is due for his checkup and shots…” messages on plain card-stock will no longer cut it after I tell him that Pants is receiving far more entertaining reminders from his vet. Gotta keep up with the Pants-es. G
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brian, that cracks me up. It’s something I might like to do with all those unsolicited credit card applications. Maybe I’ll save that tactic for that. 8)
G., I think I’m in good company with the General — my dentist sends me little postcards like that — “QM’s due for her cleaning and X-rays.” Though it does have a little smile on it with glowing teeth. I should ask for something more slick.
And then there’s all that junk mail. I sometimes wonder what the junk mail situation is in other countries. Is it just an American thing to send out all that junk mail?
In terms of the vet for our cats, we actually love the woman who saw our cats last year. It’s so good to find a vet you like. She was very intuitive with him, too, when he was really sick last year. We also have an emergency vet not far away from us. That’s unusual. A lot of cities can’t afford to keep a place like that open all hours of the day and night.
I’ll have to ask our vet about the magazine next time we go in. The write-up on Dick Van Dyke is kind of cool. He and his wife Michelle have a wire-haired fox terrier named Rocky (after their first terrier Max died at 14). It’s the story of how they found Rocky and also talks about that breed of dog, how intuitive they are.
Our cat, Kiev, is like that. She tells us when things are off kilter — when she needs fresh water, when they are out of food, when someone’s at the door. She’s a lot like a dog that way. And is the smartest of our cats.
One last story on Max (their former dog), he was bitten by a rattlesnake and had to be on an IV and their vet took him home with her to care for him until he got better. That’s going over and beyond the call!
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Oh, there’s one other tidbit about Dick Van Dyke in this mag — Johnny Carson almost got the role of Rob Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Johnny was doing a game show at the time, and Dick had a Broadway show going. They thought about casting Johnny. As fate would have it, I guess they both ended up where they belonged.
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QM, Mr Van Dyke showed up in our mailbox last week but I threw him out before reading what he had to say. Oh dear, hope he wasn’t writing to Mr. Otis or Mr. Rafael or to Ms. Sony.
We’re vet hoppers in that we’ve changed vets a lot in recent years, plus the last two trips to vets have been emergencies on weekends; hence, there’s now the vet hospital vet. The good news is that we now seem to have a solid basic needs vet. He’s pricey, but he’s close by AND a good friend of ours works there one day a week.
Sheesh, can you imagine working with people doctors that same way? And the other three guys before this latest one weren’t even specialists; we just never had good chemistry with any until the latest, more expensive one. Bummer that he costs more.
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QM,
Could you ask Mr Pants if he is currently covered under an HMO or PPO? I’m thinking of switching and need an informed opinion.
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8) heather, it’s that time of year again, isn’t it? Where we have to renew our benefits. Health insurance for humans these days takes more and more time to understand. There are so many options. And it’s kind of pick and choose piecemeal for benefits these days (as opposed to the package deals of years past).
I’ll ask Mr. Pants what he prefers, but I have a feeling he likes to go with the health insurance with the most choice. Choices! He likes choices. I guess he pays a little more for the opportunity to go Out-Of-Network, but, hey, don’t we all.
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ybonesy, I can’t believe you threw out the mail of Otis, Sony, and Rafael without letting them read it first! They would have met Rocky. Sigh.
Glad you found a vet you like. It’s not always easy. Sometimes we pay for what we get (not always true, but sometimes). I think our vet’s prices are comparable.
Some vets just have a way with the animals and are more intuitive than others. And they also are good at setting the humans at ease who are bringing their pets in sometimes in very sick conditions. They’ve really got to be good with people and animals — a special kind of person.
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I know, I can’t believe it either! If only I had known.
Most of the vets we’ve used have been good folk, and I honestly don’t know why exactly we’ve hopped so much. Jim’s usually in charge of the vet experience for our dogs, Sony being the exception. Girl dog goes to Mom, boy dogs to Dad. 8)
There sure are a lot of vets in these parts. Just within a short radius, there must be at least five. I mean, 2 miles max. Lots of animals around here. I think we must have been trying them all out. I’ll have to ask Jim why he changed from the one guy we seemed to have locked on to before the current guy.
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p.s., I had to chuckle when I noticed that WordPress’ automatic “related post” generator had picked a post you did on the Jodie Foster movie, “The Brave One.” LOL. Must have been the term “goes postal.”
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lol. I missed that connection to The Brave One but now I see it’s back. And what’s with the Fancy Pants?
Yeah, let us know what Jim says about the vet. I think when people move they have to try the new vets in the area.
Our friends recently moved from city to suburbs and have been checking out the vets around them, too. They had gone to the same clinic forever. Convenience is also a consideration. It’s just too hard to travel far away from home when you need to get to the vet.
It’s that way with human doctors, too. I had the best doctor but she went into administration a few years back. I have yet to find someone as wonderful as she was in the GP area.
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[…] pleases the court, we’d like to submit the following items into evidence: Exhibits #1, #2, #3.) I’ll have to make restitution next […]
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[…] The S-H Family Liz, D., Kiev & Mr. Stripey Pants […]
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Wow – another Mr Stripey Pants! I have one who’s 10 and ginger. He doesn’t get much mail, but I insist that the vet refers to him by his full name. Only those who know him well and refrain from sticking thermometers in uncomfortable places get to call him Stripey!
http://www.confessionsofacatwoman.com
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minlit, I have heard of at least three Mr. Stripey Pants! Amazingly, we often call Mr. Pants, just that, Pants. Liz will call him Stripey but I rarely do. He’s the most warm and loving cat I’ve ever known. Our Mr. Stripey Pants just went to the vet again and got his check-up. He’s 13 years old this year. This week we took our second cat, Kiev to the vet for her check-up. She’s in perfect health at 16 years. I still can’t believe they are that old. I feel lucky to have happy and healthy cats for the time being. After losing Chaco a few years ago, I don’t want to go through that again for a while. Say Hi to your Mr. Stripey Pants!
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[…] from my father, yet I feel glad I wrote the letter. It is one less thing I have to wonder about. Mr. Stripey Pants had surgery on Monday, December 12th. Bone rubbed on bone in his lower jaw when he chewed his food. […]
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