Sunday, March 21, 2010

All NIghter

I pulled an all nighter, out after cats in the Big Boys Colony and the Sprite Oldies colony.

Right now, I feel like I've been run over by a bulldozer.

Getting old.

The responses from Ikea I believe now are automated. I believe this because there's no personalization, and the same thing is repeated over and over, without any heart or variation. I believe the responses are computer generated, software recognizing certain words, then responding. Either that or a very very cold impersonal person. They do not answer direct questions whatsoever, and insist I must buy seperate packages to make the frame functional, to hold up the mattress. It's really quite cold, like an icebox, and robotic. The whole experience has turned me off Ikea big time. They are a cold inhuman robotic big box store who care nothing about ethics or honesty.

I should have trusted my gut. They have this yellow line you are to follow. My brother, who took me there, would not think of going through the store in any manner other than to follow that yellow line through. That is like is a bunch of cows being herded, for a mechanical materialistic consumeristic money driven purpose. Scary yukko! Get off the line people! Dare to not follow the Ikea yellow line!

My last reply to computer generated customer service, was to try to invoke a human response, to see if they have any humans in customer service. I said, "Shall I then deliver the useless pieces of wood to your parking lot, so that I at least, also do not have to pay the price of disposing of this useless expensive wood you packaged and sold as a functional bed frame?"

I don't know if computer generated customer service would be able to respond to that. I got no response either, so my theory I believe has been proven valid, that Ikea's customer service is a machine generated response.

I wanted to tell computer generated Ikea that I had lamented my useless Ikea bed frame problem to the trailer park woman and that she has planned out and decorated that trailer fabulously, choosing artful colors and decor that would put Ikea's boxed splendor to shame, not to mention the fact the trailer park woman's abode is decidedly warm and human to boot, not a yukky mucky cattle yard, like Ikea. And that the trailer woman said Ikea provides cheaper shit than Walmart that is poorly built but packaged to be yuppie trendy is all. But their icebox machine customer service would never include recognition of the word "trailer"! OMG no!

So, all night it was, back and forth, to the two colonies. At the Big Boys colony, I first found the short hair eartipped brown tabby in the trap. I released him and reset.

At the Sprite Oldies, I caught two males, a long hair tabby and the white male. Then, I caught the Sprite Oldies own orange and white long hair cat, Baby, who had gotten out last night. He had been howling loudly in the trap, as only a pampered house boy can howl, which usually creates enough stir to ensure no other cats are going to be trapped.

I applied catnip to the area liberally, in hopes getting them stoned out of their minds might help. It didn't. The last cat I caught there, in a very long night, was the brown tabby tux I got neutered a couple weeks ago. This is the fifth time I've trapped him. He was so stoned he just sat there staring vacantly at me from the trap and I had to shake him out. Too much catnip!

The dogs on that odd street would start to bark, as I talked to the stars and any strays who might listen, sneaking around, tip toeing sometimes, trying to be invisible to the apathetic street, where I've spent so many nights over the last three years, trying to help the unwanteds there, and they are many. The old man came out on the porch at one visit, after midnight, hearing the dogs or seeing my light. "It's just me," I offered, waving from my open car window, "the cat lady," apologetically. I mumbled, "They all think I'm nuts here, even the Alzheimerics, and I don't care at all. I just don't care at all."

At the Big Boys colony I thought I'd caught the pregnant long hair tabby. But the big hairy Maine Coon lion looker looked very male to me and it was a big male. I also recaught the short hair orange eartipped male and released him. He looked at me with shame, as if being caught a second time made him feel stupid. But not that stupid. When I opened the trap, for him to leave, he seemed disappointed, and turned to gulp the wet food, before he would exit.

Probably thought he could freeload a good time off me in my garage for a couple days.

So I had four boys I thought, at least, until, the long hair little tabby from Sprite Oldies cut loose with the most mournful howling in his trap in my garage. I took him into my bathroom and let the worried little boy out. He is a beautiful previously neutered young Maine Coon, very nervous natured but loving and sweet. I fed him, held him, hugged him, then took him back. I hope he has a home. I told him if he doesn't, and he might not, this being Albany with Albany values which don't include much respect for little lives like his, that he needed to come back running, when he sees my car, let me know, and I will try to find him somebody to love him like somebody should.

So I went to the clinic with three big boys, two more from the trailer park Big Boys colony, where Crusty comes from, where I've either trapped eleven big boys or 12. See I've lost track now. And then the tough white boy from the Sprite Oldies. All three were neutered and ready to go by noon.

There weren't many volunteers there. It was cold and pouring. But there were enough. And the vets were hot shit, running through the 81 cats there, most of them anyhow, by noon. Tamara brought up 46 of those from the North Bend area in a big van. Impressive stuff!

I brought in just the three big boys and was satisfied enough and very happy to come home and fall asleep on my love seat, legs extending off a couple feet beyond its one arm rest, in some crooked enough position that I woke up five hours later completely numb in one leg.

3 comments:

  1. okay I think the love seat needs to be dismantled, intertwined somehow with the peices of bed framing from Ikea, and a whole new bed created from the two - if i could draw here i'd send you my idea! then, if it works, we could patent it - The Ikea half bedframe/old loveseat full size bed! Or the Jody's old loveseat/peices of Ikeabedframe full size functional bed.

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  2. I think it'd be a winner. We'd market them right outside Ikea, with slogans like "Ikea sucks but we don't". Or "Our products Don't Suck Half as bad as Ikea's do!"

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  3. sounds like a plan to me....send me a photo of the ol' love seat and i'll get to work on the design - it'll be an original, thats fer sure! Hey how's this for a slogan: Got a lemon of a bed deal from ikea? we'll turn it into lemonade!

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