Dr Ferox's life as a veterinarian

I did something nice on very short notice for an older couple and their dog today. It wasn’t a huge medical procedure, but I fixed their dog up faster than they were expecting and he got to go home sooner rather than later. As they paid their bill and thanked me for the speedy work the woman smiled sweetly and handed me a brightly coloured book.

“You look old enough to have young kids of your own so I thought they’d like this book about -my dog-.”

“………Thank-you………”

While I did thank her kindly at the time and assured her that while I don’t have kids of my own one of the other vets does, I couldn’t help but be a little taken aback.

I’m twenty three years old.

Just twenty three and two months old, to the day.

I am not old enough to have young kids of my own!

Do I look so haggard, so drained and so stressed that my appearance has aged something like seven years?

Client: “Oh, you’re the vet? But I usually only see Dr Somebody-Else. Can’t I see her?”

Me: “I’m sorry but Dr Somebody-Else is on maternity leave. ”

Client: “Oh. When do you think she’ll be back?”

Me: “Oh, probably about November.”

Client: “I can’t wait that long. Could you ask her to come in for me today?”

Me: “…No.”

The weirdest thing happened this week, after the last of my Sympathy cards went out.

Somebody wrote back.

I received a very long, detailed letter telling me about the life of the pet I put to sleep. In great detail. It’s particularly surreal because I had never met these people before, and I hadn’t spent that much time with them and their pet. To be honest it was a fairly speedy event and although it was very sad at the time, I hadn’t put much further thought into it.

The question I’m debating in my mind now is whether or not I’m supposed to write back. It would be very …. weird to do so. I’m just not sure what to do with their thank-you letter.