Serenity NOW!

Two public yelling incidents in the past week. I've gotten mad at people before, but I don't remember ever actually YELLING. Its probably not justified, but I was SO mad that I wasn't even thinking.

Freak-out #1- Once a month on Saturdays PetCo has a low-cost walk-in vaccination clinic. I cancelled our regular vet appointment so I could take our dog to Petco, since it was going to be 1/2 the price. Since its only once a month, I had to make sure that I got him there because we need to board him in a few weeks, so if I missed it I would have to take him to a regular vet. Now the vaccination clinic is only from 4:30-5:30, so I figured it couldn't take very long for each pet. I arrived early (as usual), but I was told that the vet was running late (and wasn't even there yet). I got in line (behind 15 or so people) and waited, with my badly behaved dog. My annoyance level grew as I sat there for 2 hours before the vet even showed up. (Did I mention that John was outside in the van with the kids? I had told him to go home, but he/we thought that it would be over soon, especially since the vet was finally there.) ANYHOW - another hour went by before we got to the front of the line. When I got up there, I was pre-registered by a girl (that I guess must have been some sort of tech) that looked as if she were a teenager. Basically, she refused to give my dog his shots. She said she didn't feel comfortable giving all 3 of them in the same month because he is a smaller breed. (Excuse me, are YOU a vet?). She asked me which of the shots I wanted them to give him. Uh, ALL of them! I told her (again) that he needs all of the shots so he can be boarded. He's always had all of his shots in the same day - I couldn't believe it. Well this went back and forth for a while, and then she wanted me to agree to pay and then she would give me a coupon to come back next month to wait in line AGAIN for the next round of shots. This is when I started raising my voice. "I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THREE HOURS and NOW you're telling me that you refuse to give him his shots? You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I need to have him boarded at the end of the month, so WHY WOULD I PAY YOU to give him SOME shots when I'd still have to pay for a vet's visit to get the rest before I can board him??????" etc etc. Then she said, "So, what - are you just going to leave?" "YES I'M GOING TO LEAVE!!!!" I was absolutely infuriated the whole rest of the night. And so 3 hours of my life were wasted and this Friday morning I'm lugging Kendall, WakeLee, and Scrappy up the huge flight of stairs to the vet's office. That should be just AWESOME. So, NO, I would NOT recommend going to the PetCo vaccination clinic with your pet. They were late, it took forever, and they were rude and unprofessional. PS - I called 3 vets, shockingly, none of them had ANY problem with giving my dog all of his shots in one visit.

Freak-out #2- John and I stopped by Target tonight and halfway through the store, we saw/heard a bunch of teenagers cussing at each other. You know how some of them do, trying to act mature or whatever. The two of them closest to us (a boy and a girl) were across the aisle, shouting obscenities down the store to another group. "F" this and that, you know, the usual.

I just get so mad when stupid kids have to ruin things for everyone else, especially talking like that in front of my children. SO, it just slipped out: "HEY! Knock that off!", I really didn't intend to say it out loud, but there it was. Then they started cussing at me, which was really uncalled for. Excuse me, 15 year old kids, I didn't realize it was "awesome" to yell obscenities at a woman (and her baby). So, that's when I started to turn into the Incredible Hulk... "NO - I WILL tell you what to do, because we have kids in this store and I don't want them to hear that!" Then the smart-mouthed boy told me to mind my own "f%$#'n business", so then I really started to get mad. "Oh, it ISN'T my business? Well I guess I'll go MAKE IT MY BUSINESS when I talk to the manager and have you KICKED OUT OF THE STORE!!!!!" So then we walked off in that direction (and of course, they continued to yell at me, calling me a "B#%^@" and all of that as I walked down the long aisle). Of course no store employees were anywhere to be seen, or maybe they were hiding, I don't know. On the way out, I decided not to report them, because I didn't think the store would really do anything and it would just suck up more of my time. At least they THOUGHT I was reporting them, which gave me some satisfaction.

I'm not proud that I lost my temper, but I am proud that I stood up for myself. Normally I just get upset and start crying. I feel like sometimes you have to speak up. If nobody says anything, then people will continue to act the same way and treat people the same way. Probably nothing that I said will change anything, but at least I spoke up. Now I just have to do it without yelling.