What is it with these disabled/deaf relay calls?

I've received two relay calls now, in the last few weeks. An operator is relaying information typed by a disabled or deaf person. The first one was lengthy and the person wanted to adopt a dog. No matter how many times I told the person through the operator I didn't have dogs, the questions about adopting a dog kept coming. The operator stops to chide me in the process, as happened tonight, that I was to speak as if I were speaking to somebody else, not her, because I'd forget, out of frustration at a person who obviously isn't "listening" on the other end. I got chided over and over, just because I messed up. The person typing to her got no chiding for contacting a cat rescue about wanting a dog, wasting my time and hers and state tax dollars. What the fuck?

Before people start screaming at me about being mean to the disabled, HEY, I'm disabled, OK? So shut up. I'm not prejudiced. But, I don't like people who waste my time or call late. My time is wasted by some dickhead calling a cat rescue wanting a dog, for gosh sakes. And by the one who called tonight, at 10:00 p.m. THAT IS RUDE! Just because a person is classed disabled, doesn't mean they get a free ticket to act stupid, crazy or rude. Just gives disabled people a bad name, is what it does.

Tonight, I happened to have been drunk when the relay call came. It also is 10:00 p.m. at night. Now I know many disabled people don't have any hours to worry about and many are up half the night because they can sleep late. That isn't me, however. I don't sleep late. I work way too much. Tonight, I was trying to relax.

Then the relay call comes and I stupidly answer the phone half drunk. Again, I get chided over and over by the very politically correct operator about not talking to her, but rather pretending I"m speaking to someone I can't talk to.

They want me to tell them the details of all the cats and kittens I have or e-mail the details to the person. You have to talk very slowly so the relay operator can type your response, then say "go ahead" when finished, which I would also forget to say.

I tell that person I can't do that, tell them details on every cat because it would be extremely time consuming via this system, and that they need to not be calling me so late anyhow and that they can go to my website and look at the cats I have available and then e-mail me questions.

I know the ad running lists my website. If they can type into a machine that sends their message to an operator, they can surf the web. If they have that special machine, they have web access, too.

I responded three times that they would need to visit my website and e-mail me off the website after looking at the cats, and they kept responding they wanted me to send them details of each cat I had for adoption until I became frustrated and just said "No". Then, as I was trying to give the operator my website, the person hung up on me.

What a bunch of baloney. I don't care if a person is disabled or not, calling this late at night is rude. And the whole politically correct chiding demanding relay system is not very user friendly. Somebody not used to it, like me, getting chided over and over by the operator, because I mess up, and direct my response to her, instead of somebody out there somewhere, and getting repeatedly chided over it as insensitive when I'd just forgetten, what a bunch of balony. I'm not accepting those calls anymore.

Man alive. Calling me like that this late. That's not very sensitive. You know?

Here's the other frustrating events of today. A Lebanon woman calls and says she wants me to immediately come get about 17 unfixed cats they have and get them fixed.

Turns out, it's a couple I have helped three times before, in three different residences. They were drunks. I first encountered them in an Albany trailer park and got tons of cats fixed there. Then I had to get cats fixed on Elm street when they moved there after their eviction from the trailer park. When they were evicted from the Elm street house, they moved to another location and again I ended up there, fixing more cats.

I hadn't heard from them in three or four years and I was happy not hearing from them. Now I hear from them. Despite them knowing about the FCCO and other programs, they got a cat and let her breed and now there are 17 cats where once there was one, and now they're thinking "this can't go on. Let's call Jody." So some Lacomb woman gave them my number and now they expect me to clean up their mess for the fourth time. The fourth time. Oh yeah, the fourth time.

What a bunch of balony. I fired off at them and gave them the Portland FCCO number, even though the cats are all tame and told them for once, to take care of it themselves. They seem to have no concept that their actions cost other people money. Or they don't care, I guess, as long as it costs them nothing. It's a strange mentality in these here parts.

And then some Albany man calls who has seven or eight unfixed cats and I was fed up and fired off at him and asked him why the hell he didn't get his female fixed long ago and why now he thinks somebody else should pay the costs of his behavior. I then gave him SafeHaven's cat voucher program information and told him to let me know how that turns out for him and his unfixed cats.

Poppa is in its down season for fund raising. These people who knowingly create their own cat problems need to take some responsibility, is my feeling.