A Super Feel Good Phone Call

I get a call yesterday.  It's a Lebanon man.  He's looking for a way to fix a feral colony, wants to know if I can help.  I tell him I probably cannot help, not with Poppa funds and no real clinic space to get a lot of cats fixed before my funding ends completely.

I tell him about the FCCO, about their program, that its a great option for fixing feral colonies.  He wants to ask why my funding is ending, what the needs are to keep at it.  I tell him the needs.  Money for fixing.  Clinics that will fix the cats.  And about my ailing car.  I tell him little people like me are not uncommon all over America, trying to solve the problem, on a shoestring budget, a wing and a prayer.  But that we, in the end, end up with too many unwanted cats and dead cars.

He vows to get ahold of the FCCO and to see what he can find on getting me a discount for repairing my car.  I am ecstatic about that.

I say, at the end of the conversation, "May I ask how many cats are in this colony and where it is located?"

I'm wanting to help, you see.

He estimates 30 cats.  He gives me the cross streets.

The cross streets are extremely familiar to me.

I get to tell the man this....."Those cats are already fixed."

"You are kidding me," he says, stunned.

"Yup," I tell him, along with twenty more around the corner and across the canal.  All fixed. Using Poppa funds, various clinics, including the FCCO.  And my labor.  Look for those right ear tips!"

He is repeating gratitudes, over and over.  He just moved to that area, has three cats of his own, all fixed.

I am soaring inside, that I got to say that, to somebody worried about the cats in his new neighborhood....

"They're all already fixed.  Don't worry about it."

It was that man fed colony, the guy who wouldn't help out, even seemed to enjoy making it harder, where the five dying kittens came from, two with bulging eyes, all with ringworm, accepted by a wonderful Portland rescue.  Where I placed a feral housing unit for the cats.  Where the donations for all that work and effort, to change that neighborhood, came to a total of $10.

All already fixed!