Not a happy camper

For the majority of the day, nothing whatsoever to report. But it also turned out to be one of the extremely rare occasions where I found myself absolutely incandescent with rage.

Having agreed to babysit Rufus (dog) and Clayton (cat) for a week at short notice, I was then informed by their owner that Rufus was going on a playdate today so he didn't get lonely while I was at work, and that I should arrive at a specific address at a specific time. A taxi had been booked to bring us to Rufus' house. When I pointed out that taxis didn't accept dogs, I was assured that because he's a therapy dog (in some bizarre alternate reality in his owner's mind) it had all been arranged with the taxi company.

Which would have been fine, except that the person running the 'doggie playdate' wasn't at home at the nominated time. The dog was locked inside her house, but she was off somewhere getting her nails buffed. Or something (don't ask me what a wealthy, spoilt woman (hereafter WSW) does to fill in her day aside from type omg, omg, oops in reply to my pointed text messages asking where she was).

Eventually, a neighbour let me into the WSW's four storey townhouse so I could wrestle Rufus into his collar and leash and hustle him out to await the taxi.

And of course the taxi didn't show up. But you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?

Already crabby, I phoned the taxi company multiple times over the course of nearly an hour. By the time I gave up and started walking several suburbs in the dark with:
a) Rufus
b) clothes and sundry belongings to last for the week
c) books
d) laptop; and
e) basic groceries (because Rufus' owner lives on spirulina and tofu),

I was absolutely livid.

Attempted (unsuccessfully) to flag down taxis en route, and poor wee Rufus rapidly turned from a bundle of energy into a drooping little bundle of fluff. He'd walk ten paces and then park his backside on the pavement and refuse to move, so I had to keep coaxing him along. This was a new experience for him, as his Mumsy has a car and drives Rufus everywhere - I, sadly, haven't owned a car for 10 years so if I want to go somewhere, it's either by bus/train (which of course don't allow dogs) or I walk.

Later, much later, we straggled our way through his front door, and was greeted by Clayton's indignant demands to be fed. Rufus was so exhausted he just crawled onto my lap and looked at me pitifully, not understanding why Auntie Puggle was being so cruel. Poor wee beggar.

I shall leave it to your imagination to guess the conversation I had when his Mum phoned to say she was having a great time with her new toyboy.