Don't have time for that.

     This afternoon I was called by a gentleman I'd never met before.  He told me that he was watching the cows for one of my regular clients, and that one of the calves had this funny mass sticking out of it's backside.  It sounded like it was a rectal prolapse.
     I asked this gentleman if he had somewhere for us to catch the calf.  Keep in mind that the man that owns the calf of a regular client of mine, and I know full well that the answer to that question is a resounding "No!"  "Well" the man says "We have a pen we could put him in, but we don't really have anywhere to catch his head."  So I ask him if he can bring it to me in the clinic.  "I can try" he replies, "But it might be kind of hard to catch him, he's kind of wild." 
     I was just finishing up another appointment at this time, about 40 miles from my clinic.  So I told the man to try, and to let me know one way or the other if I needed to meet him at the clinic, or come out to their place.  This farm being only about another 5 minutes past the clinic.
     So I drive all the way to the clinic, and I still haven't heard from him.  I call him back "What's the verdict sir?  Can you get him to me, or do I need to come out."  "Well I got him in the pen" the man replied "But I still need to pull the trailer down there and see if I can get him in it."
     Another 10 or 15 minutes goes by and he calls back "Well I got him in the trailer but I have somewhere I need to be at 4:00, and I need to leave here by 3:30 to get there.  I don't think I've got time to bring him in and drop him off.  "Fine, I say I'll be right there."  Keep in mind it's only 3:00, and it's a five minute trip to the clinic from this farm.  So that's 10 minutes of driving, plus an extra 20 minutes to unload the calf, unhook his trailer, visit or do whatever else he wants to do.  But he doesn't think he has time.
     So I drive the five minutes to his place, and quickly discover the reason why he didn't have time to bring the calf to me.  He'd hooked the trailer to the back of an ancient John Deere tractor that probably has a max speed of 10 miles an hour.  The calf is now caught in the back of the trailer waiting for me to repair it's rectal prolapse.  This calf weighs about 500 pounds, and true to the man's earlier statement it's a little wild.  It's bouncing off the walls of the trailer, like a couple of fighters in a cage match. 
     So I rope the calf from the outside of the trailer, snug it up close to one corner.  Then crawl in behind it, while dodging the flying feet trying to kick me, and administer some sedative in the tail vein.  "What is it?"  The man asks  "I noticed it this morning when I was feeding them, and this afternoon when it hadn't gone away I thought maybe I should call you."  "So let me get this straight"  I think to myself "This calf has had this problem all day long, and now that you don't have time to bring it to me and my nice chute to catch him in, you're going to let me wrestle with this wild thing in the confines of this death trap."
     Well the sedatives kick in, and I'm able to replace the prolapse without getting myself killed.  By the time I'm done it's nearly 4:00 now.  The man is still there watching me, fascinated by what I've just done.  I politely say "Shouldn't you get going, I think you're going to be late for your appointment."  "Oh I'll be fine" the man says.  "It's not that important, I can probably miss it."  
     "Aarrrggghhhhh!"  Is what I want to scream, as I'm pulling my hair out.  At least I learned a valuable lesson, if I'm ever running late for an appointment, I now know that I probably shouldn't try to take my Tractor to get there.