For Last Resort Only

I keep one in the treatment room of my clinic. The treatment room is the center of things, and you pass through it to get anywhere else in the clinic, so it makes sense to keep it there. I spend much of my day in the treatment room, so yeah it makes sense to keep one there. 

It has been in the same place for over forty years. I check on it every month out of habit, making sure it is always well maintained and loaded. And then it just sits there. Never once have I actually needed to use it, which is a good thing. I suppose one might question the need to keep something like this handy when one has never actually needed to use it. But there is always that small possibility that someday I might suddenly need it. If that time comes, I’d rather it be there than not.

I concede that it is not one of those deals were everything is always positive when you keep one of these around. I know of one very tragic case where we think the young lady tried to use one of these to save her life when the twice convicted violent rapist attacked her in a veterinary clinic much like mine, and he took it away and used it to murder her. So there is that side to the argument that I hear often.

I have one at home too. This one lives in a closet, but it is always in the same place, waiting, ready, and easy to access. There’s one in the truck too. For that just in case moment when really…nothing else will do.

For some reason, the politicians aren’t trying to prohibit me from keeping it around. I guess they don’t see the political potential here that they see in, oh my guns for instance. And they fail to see the benefit of, oh, my guns for instance. My guns also hang around on the off chance I might need one to save my life and property in an emergency. And they harm no one in the process of waiting. Still, the politicians seek to take away my guns.

But the politicians have no problem with at all with my fire extinguishers.