A peeve

Blogging has been sporadic and will probably continue that way. Sick Horse. The older of the two ancient Quarter horses. Leg problems, then the veterinarian said he may have foundered but then the same vet later said he hadn't. Next came the wound on his neck that the other vet in the practice said was a bite from a venomous brown recluse spider. I don't even know what a brown recluse looks like (all spiders look alike when you're screaming, running in the opposite direction) and had never seen anything like the wound before but let me tell you something. It's nasty, and then it gets worse. And then it gets really bad.

"Asshole" wasn't out of trouble yet but he was vastly improved, until Sunday when I began calling the vets' answering service without a call back. Two calls Sunday, four Monday and one yesterday morning when first one of them finally called me back, then the other. The "Leg Vet" was out yesterday afternoon; he'll be back out tomorrow with x-ray equipment to see if "Asshole" did, in fact, founder after all. The horse is also on antibiotics, again, because he's developing some type of upper respiratory thing or an infection from the spider bite. (Or he could be having a reaction to some of the other meds he's on.).

As you might expect I'm not particularly pleased right now, especially with the vets. Unfortunately when it comes to horses there aren't many here from which to choose. This, however, is not the focus of my peeve. It's the background.

With all the telephone calls I've been making to the veterinarians these last few weeks I've been running to the phone each and every time it's rung. In almost every instance (except when it's been someone actually calling) if I pick up the receiver as its beginning the fourth ring I get a click on the other end. If I manage to grab the receiver before that, I'm treated to a recording of voice telling me why I should vote for them or the candidate on whose behalf they are calling.

Between the two, we've probably been getting ten of these types of calls a day. It's this bad already and it's not even close to the elections yet.

Wondering if perhaps the vet had called and hung up before I'd been able to pick up the receiver, I've star-69ed the hang-ups. They are either "no phone number available" or, "The last number . . . was area code zero-zero-zero, zero-zero-zero, zero-zero, zero-zero." I don't know for certain that they're automated political calls, programmed to hang up on the fourth ring to avoid time- wasting answering machines. Still, I figure the odds are in my favor.

If I were in a better mood when I've gotten to the phone in time to hear a recordings, I might listen just long enough to find out which asshole (not to be confused with Asshole, the horse) is doing this — most if not all are, I'm fairly sure — so that I could call them, their campaign headquarters or their party to tell them exactly what I think of them. But I'm in no mood right now, especially now since the time spent might keep the vet from getting through.

We're dealing with a sick horse. In the larger scheme of things that's nothing when you think about how many people are jumping up to grab the phone each time it rings for other, far more important reasons: a child or other family member who's not home when they should have been or perhaps word about a sick or injured loved one.

It makes no difference to the politicians whether anyone listens to their telephone "spam" or is inconvenienced by it. They don't care. I wonder, though, if they realize how many people they're ticking off with their harassment.

Because that's exactly what it is: harassment.