Aren't Meth Heads Fun?

I think I almost got killed tonight. The old lady was so nice a few days ago, when I went with another resident who lives nearby, attempting to locate unfixed cats in the Elm street district. She had two fixed torbi's and wanted me to trap a white male who hung out in her backyard. Instead tonight, I set a trap in the alley and caught a torbi. I don't know the cat, and it could be the elusive feral torbi, mother of the sickest kitten I took today from the other house, on the other side of the alley from this old woman.

But I had to check, only knowing what one of the old woman's cats look like. She was friendly a couple days ago. I got the wrong house first. The woman directed me away from the house next door, where she said an old couple lived. Houses look different in the dark. It was just past 8:30 and our long days of light aren't as long anymore. Long long daylight hours make cat trapping, best done in the twilight, a later evening endeavor. But the days are getting shorter and the twilight comes a little earlier now, at least, in late August.

So I found the right place, and went to her door, which was wide open, some guy on the couch watching TV and knocked even though the man had raised up, seeing me on their porch about to knock. Stupidly, I thought he too would be friendly, like the old woman had been two days earlier.

He would not get up. I told him I had caught a cat in the alley and wanted to be sure it was not one of hers, and could he come look at the cat in my car, to be sure. He said "no", that he didn't give a shit. Then yelled at the old lady "The bitch lady is here." And she yelled "Which bitch?" (apparently everyone is a bitch to these folks) "The cat lady bitch," he said. I didn't even know him, never have seen him before. He was rude and high both.

She came out screaming. I heard her screaming about what a bitch I am and what she'll do to me if I touch her cats before she came into sight. I couldn't reconcile this with our brief contact a couple days before at all. She screamed more that if I touched her cats she would kill me. I kept my cool and said again I just wanted to be sure the cat I had trapped in the alley behind her place was not one of her cats. She didn't seem to get it, yelled nonsensical things, and again threatened me with bodily harm if I touched one of her cats. It went on and on.

I just wanted them to look, to be sure. I didn't want to release the cat if it was not hers and indeed that feral female, who kept popping sick kittens in the alley. But I do try to be sure any cat I trap isn't owned, before taking them in. The cat in the trap was skinny, had earmites and a URI, which made a good case that it wasn't owned, but you never know, because in this neighborhood even the own cats are not well cared for at all. The only possibility for an owner would be this woman, who has two torbis. And I was also going to tell her I would set a trap for the white male she wanted caught, out back, as she had requested. She'd seemed so friendly and cat happy two days before.

Then I realized these people were high on something major, and this person didn't even resemble the pleasant old lady of a couple days ago, that now this was a lunatic, a dangerous irrational lunatic.

I told them to forget it, that I was going to turn the cat loose anyhow. Repeated attempts to get them to just look at the cat to be sure were not working out. I started to my car and she mumbled she was getting her husband to shoot me. I quickened my pace, but the old lady and the man now up off the couch were following me to my car. I quickly opened the back and diverted their anger by saying "Is that your cat?"

"Jesus Christ," the man yelled, "that ain't our cat. Why are bothering us when it ain't even our cat?" The woman now says both their cats are asleep in the house and is screaming and cussing at me again. Guess I can forget asking if they still want me to set the trap in their backyard, I thought to myself, sarcastically. But, surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, given her massive personality change, she suddenly screams "AND YOU JUST KEEP UP THAT GOOD WORK YOU"RE DOING WITH THE CATS" then shifts back into curses and threats and I get the hell out of there, shaking.

As I drive off, I'm thinking, did I just hear what I think I heard? This woman stops threatening my life long enough to give me a compliment. Wow. She must really like cats.

Aren't meth heads fun?

What I have discovered in Albany, Oregon is that people complain to high heaven about the cat problem, often when they are some of the people who caused it. But none of them will watch a trap, get up off their butts to help in any manner, donate, and they love to abuse, threaten, break into the car of, the person trying to solve it. People want favors of you but are unwilling to do favors in return--like the people who are mechanics I ran into tonight who wanted worm meds for their two cats, but would not help me with my dangling rear hatch lever on the car.

It's all about personal irresponsibility and selfishness here and using anyone you can use to get what you want for free while doing nothing in return. That's the value system here in Albany, Oregon, like it or not. And that is why I want gone from this county forever fast. I don't have anything anymore for myself, not even a forest hideaway where I can sob to my old friends the stars.

I've never run into so many meth heads, theives, lunatics and alcoholics in my life. I think this county would be very well suited to volunteer as a nationwide refuge for addicts, criminals and alcoholics. A huge electrified fence could encircle the entire county, and they could live out their lives here, all of them from the entire nation, while the non addicts could live out their lives in the rest of the big wide state of Oregon, where I want to be, in the non meth head populace. I think this is a very good idea and should be implemented immediately.