"Careen the Cat" genre: Alternative General
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	MP3.com CD: That Buzzy Sound - buy it! CD: That Buzzy Sound   Label: Raging Rose Records Credits: Written By: angelo gianni ©1999gianni/ Produced By: John Furr. Co-Produced by angelo gianni
	Story Behind the Song Careen the Cat by angelo ©gianni Just another ridiculous job in a long line of ridiculous jobs that I have always kept so that I could afford the mandatory tools of my generations self destructive therapy: cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. This time I was a grunt in a vets office working at a little better than minimum wage. I never much liked animals, but the pay was okay, the receptionist was cute, and it had to be better than the suicide inducing degradation of working in a fast food joint which is what I had been doing. My most important responsibilities at the vets were to walk the animals twice a day and, of course, because of the vast karmic debt that Ill never be able to pay off, scrubbing the sickly and sometimes worm filled shit and piss out of the cages. Somehow, this was still less degrading than the fast food job because at least there was no one there watching me. I also had to hold the animals so the vet wouldnt get mauled while checking them out or giving them shots. This usually meant that I would get mauled instead. I would also hold them for X Rays which I now blame for the handfuls of hair that end up in my shower drain every morning. I also was given the responsibility of spinning down blood and stool samples in the centrifuge. During operations, I was in charge of anesthetizing the animals. At slow points in the day I would go into the operating room and attach the nitrous oxide mask , which smelled of dog nose, to my lungs and the low pay and disgusting work wouldnt matter for a little while. Why the vet wasnt smart enough to keep the nitrous under lock and key, Ill never know, but thank you God. While the gas was bad enough, there was something else that was much worse. The hose that came off from the tank ran through a small filter and then to the mask. Another one of my jobs was to keep this filter filled with an ether like liquid called Halothane. The filter only held about a teaspoons worth, this was strong stuff. I dont know what possessed me to do this in the first place, but I grew very fond of putting a little halothane in a rag and huffing it. I think I may have gotten slightly addicted to it, because I found myself stealing thimbles full at a time, collecting it in a little glass bottle. The stuff really was amazing. As you inhaled, your body would turn warm and sort of numb. Youd lose the ability to talk- and then colors more vivid than anything in real life would flash and spin in spectacular shapes before your eyes. It would only last a few minutes, but I swear, it was better than anything Ive tried since. As you can imagine, there couldnt have been anything much more unhealthy. Im sure I could have written a symphony with all of the braincells I donated to the Halothane Fund. It got really bad. At one point I sat in my brown Honda Civic at a dead end dirt road huffing away. I let out the clutch ready to drive off and found that I had accidentally put it in reverse and had backed myself over an embankment and into some trees. I huffed some more and then walked to a phone and called my friends at the volunteer fire department who brought out a truck with a winch to get me out. There were some parts of this job that I really hated. When animals died, it was my duty to wrap them in a garbage bag, bring them down to the basement, and put them in the freezer. Every week this strange old man would come and pile all of the dead frozen animals into his truck and haul them away. Supposedly he took them somewhere and put them in an incinerator. Hed even bring the ashes back in ceramic containers if the owners of the pets wanted them. (Of course, there was an extra fee for that.) I also hated when the people from the pound came by. Every couple of weeks or so, theyd bring all the animals who had passed the deadline for being picked up or adopted. Id spend hours holding these poor animals while the vet injected them with poison and then spend another couple of hours getting them into the freezer. On one of those days, they brought in a cat who had just given birth to 7 kittens- all of which were to be put to sleep. I fell in love with the runt. She was tiny and black with a tail that looked like a chimney sweeps tool, with white feet, a white nose, and a splash of white at the tip of her tail. I picked her up and held her against my chest and she dug into my shirt with her claws and climbed up onto my shoulder and purred into my ear. I brought all of the kittens and the mother cat in to the vet one by one for their injections, but I saved the runt for last. I brought her in and asked the vet if I could take her home. He looked her over and said that the runts were never healthy, and that this one looked especially feeble, but that I could take her if I wanted to. I did and somehow, I think she knew that I had saved her life. I named her Careen. This kitten was the greatest. I had a motorcycle at the time, and I would put her in my shirt where she would lay perfectly still while I drove. If I was wearing jeans, she would climb up my leg, up my shirt and onto my shoulder where she would hang out like a parrot while I walked around doing whatever it was that I was doing. I really loved her, and she loved me. A week and a half later I was loosing a fight with a buff hangover on an especially dreadful Saturday morning as I scrubbed the cages for the thousandth time. Careen had been breathing a little bit funny, so I had brought her for the vet to take a look at when he got in. There was a cat who had just had its claws removed bleeding all over the place and screaming like a torture victim, (which about sums up that procedure.) The cats screaming was making all of the dogs go crazy. All of the animals had diarrhea and the smell was sickening. Fleas were attacking my shins like tiny Attilas. The vet came in and yelled over the racket that the owners of a Beagle who had just died wanted an autopsy. So I had to go down and dig through 18 dead, frozen animals to find the fucking Beagle. I wont go into detail about how traumatic this was. I brought him upstairs, unwrapped him and put him on a table to thaw out. All of the animals were going crazy and the dog was frozen in this bizarre position with an insane, frightening smile on his face. I was sweating and the alcohol from the night before was seeping out my pores. I poured a cup of Halothane on a rag and breathed for my life, but the noise only got louder and crazier and the thawing dog was reading my mind, I knew he was going to jump up and start talking, the declawed cat was sticking knitting needles into my brain with its screaming, all of the animals were yelling at me, accusing me, closing in on me. I ran for Careens cage to grab my kitten and escape. She lay there, a little puddle of blood drying on her face. I picked her up and she was dead. I screamed at all of the animals and threw Careen full force against a wall and watched her head explode like a vivid firework in a black sky. And then I sunk down in the middle of the chaos and cried until I couldnt, until I no longer cared, until it no longer mattered. Lyrics Careen ©gianni youre just a runt but thats heredity and for a time I wasnt even me no need dont ask I will Pick you out of the liter you scream frozen dog is thawing out and smiling claws are sharp, but theyre dulling to grab or staying here tow my line how I wanted to.

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