I take my cat Uncle Louie to a big glossy veterinary practice, with many veterinarians and nice clean offices. To get there, I put Uncle Louie (a large black-and-gray tabby cat who is made up of equal amounts fear, food drive, dominance, and cuddles) into his carrier, board the bus, and ride over while he explains to all the passengers that he is in some kind of implausible hell, and when we get there I sit in a room where people have dogs and it smells bad.

I used to have one veterinarian that I requested, but she left. She owned cats, and was sympathetic. Now I just get whatever exhausted young person won the lottery to get into vet school (harder than medical school) because they originally loved working with animals. After Louie has been examined and the vet has told me he will probably have to have more teeth extracted and he should eat less, I make the return trip on the bus, and Louie eventually forgives me, especially if I feed him.

The practice has office staff, whose purpose in life is to create systems and procedures for every possible thing that can go wrong. In the process, they create new and wonderful afflictions.

For instance, I have pet insurance, and I dutifully informed the office. It turned out this was a mistake, because my pet insurance cannot take claims from the veterinarian, only from me. So the veterinarian office routinely submitted claims on Uncle Louie’s behalf, no matter how many times I told them not to, and the pet insurance promptly sent me an email telling me that I couldn’t do it that way. I finally took the insurance off my account. (The pet insurance is another annoyance, mind you, because everything I submit turns out to be a “pre-existing condition” so I don’t know why I’m paying so much for it.)

My vet office also values patient communication. That is a euphemism. It means that because I had two emails and a phone number listed on my account (what? They asked for them) they sent me notifications in triplicate. I thought I cleared it up by calling, but in the end I had to stand over them at the office and get them to make my file really, really, clear about where to send things. They were a trifle defensive.

They diligently send reminders when my cat needs to make an appointment. That’s nice, except that the last time they sent a reminder, I didn’t get back to them as soon as they wanted, so they sent me an email asking if I wanted to stop being a client. I had to go stand over them at the office then, too.

The thing that ticked me off this week is that Uncle Louie has a visit scheduled for Monday. Apparently there are clients who don’t show up for their appointments. I am not one of them. Nonetheless, each communication I get from the office starts out “Please confirm Louie’s appointment at least 2 days prior to the scheduled exam so we can best accommodate other sick patients who may need care. If we do not receive confirmation within this timeframe, Louie’s appointment will be automatically canceled.” (emphasis in original)

I responded “Confirmed” to the email, and I also sent them a text this morning, saying it was confirmed. No response. I tried calling, too, but their voice mail doesn’t have the option of pressing a number to talk to a human being (I happen to know that it doesn’t matter which number you press, but that’s beside the point). I suspect they will send me a text at some point asking me to type “C” for confirmation, but I don’t know.

I feel like an elementary student whose teacher takes away everyone’s recess because a few people misbehaved. I also feel like going to the beat-up, ratty veterinary practice around the corner from me, where the care may not be cutting edge but by god I am not dealing with what is pretending to be a massive bureaucracy. You see, I happen to know that the office staff at my current practice is several well-meaning young women who are working their butts off, not some remote Office of Cat Affairs the way they appear.

Yes, I have reached that point where I visualize myself striding in, saying, “Do you people want clients?” and speaking loudly and in a prolonged manner while all the people there with their pets can hear me. But it’s not the staff’s fault. The employees of every public-facing organization eventually come around to the idea that the client is the problem, honestly. You should listen to nurses talk.

So I don’t think I will yell at them. But I will be carrying a large unhappy cat who is making loud noises, and will have a plastic bag with a stool sample in it at the time, so I make no promises.