Every year I go camping with a couple of thousand of my dearest friends at the S.C.A's annual Pensic War. Every year, a group of doctors, nurses, paramedics etc. take time off from their jobs, to do the same thing at Pensic. They're all volunteers, and they handle medical needs for a camp of 10,000 plus assorted nuts. I suspect they bring home a couple of good stories. But that's all they get for spending their vacations doing their jobs.

We might also praise Animal X, the biggest goddamned flake I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, EXCEPT in moments of crisis. I found that out the hard way more than once. She spent on birthday, hers not mine in the Emergency Room with me, because I'd broken my arm badly. She was an enormous help with my recent move. Of course she also wished a kitten on me two weeks before I moved. She's a fine kitten, but moving with a kitten is kind of overstimulating.