18 Cats!

I had an unfulfilled promise to fix two cats owned by someone in a Lebanon trailer park. They had also asked for help fixing other park cats. At that time, I was sending out the "get involved" e-mail, demanding all cats be fixed and cooperation from management in trailer parks. Boy, I had no idea that would really happen.

I arrived this evening thinking I was going to pick up four tame cats. Instead, I was swarmed by tenants eager to get their cats fixed. Someone got tape and began labeling carriers with cat names, owner names, numbers. One guy had already trapped one feral, living inside an elderly womans trailer. With his help, I netted the second and two feral kittens, about five weeks old.

I didn't even know how many cats I was cramming into my car. One carrier alone contained three females.

When I finally counted, once home, I had 18 cats, every cat except for two, in that trailer park, that aren't fixed. And I had two $100 checks made out to Poppa from the manager. She made out one, then said that wasn't enough and made out the second.

Can you believe that?

I think it's darn wonderful.

I can't sleep tonight. I feel like the end is coming. I can feel the thrashings, the turmoil, the death struggles, the pain, as my family members try to survive this economic down turn. I can't help but think about it and feel the pangs.

The future is uncertain. My car still runs. I can live in it, if I have to, is what I reassure myself by thinking. But what about all these cats here, whom I have not been able to place?

What of those two struggling kittens I netted tonight, as they hissed and struck at me, a monster in size by comparison, from the corner of a stinky trailer bedroom. A third kittens shriveled dried long dead body lay black, flat and stuck to the carpet fibers a few feet away. Desperate souls, they were, also thrashing to survive. You think I'd leave them? Course not. Even in my own struggles. Never would I leave such souls to die there.