tobermory's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The wrong trousers Last night was animal shelter night. Even though I have had Belly Dance practice the last few weeks I still go in for about an hour and a half to do greeter duties because our supervisor can�t make it in until about 7pm and we desperately need experienced coverage for when the lobby gets full or we have some sort of problem. Don�t you love these all volunteer organizations where you can be a supervisor and still miss half of your scheduled shift every week? I�m not knocking it � it does seem to work. Anyway, last night I got there at 5:40 and there was already a crowd of about 6 or 7 people outside (we open to the public at 6pm). I let them in at about 5:50 so they could get started on applications (oops � we now call them surveys � less authoritarian I guess). Two separate women had been there previously to see dogs so I pulled their applications from the file and set them aside to wait for the dog counselor. One woman had been in before for a kitten and I pulled her survey and gave it to the cat counselor who was already there. One group of people and a single woman were there to see dogs and needed to fill out surveys, and lastly one woman was there to retrieve her cat. And boy was she pissed off. Apparently they let their cat outside and a neighbor doesn�t like that. Why, I can only guess. Usually it�s one of a few reasons: either they are concerned for the cat�s welfare or they�re fed up with the cat shitting in their sandbox/garden or the cat drives their dog apeshit or something like that. Whatever � I�m only at the shelter once a week and I wasn�t there on any of the previous occasions that their cat has been at the shelter. But, the owner was pissed at the �Cat Nazi�, and then she was even more pissed when I told her that she owed $10 for boarding and I wouldn�t give her the cat back unless she had a carrier to put him in (we�re on a busy street and due to space constraints we have to walk our big, slobbering, untrained dogs in the front of the shelter and in the parking lot � dogs that would love nothing more than to try to eat her cat and I didn�t want to be responsible for her cat freaking out and running into certain death). She then went home and sent back her equally crabby and ill-mannered husband who, in so many words, informed me that they were busy and wealthy and didn�t want us to ever accept their cat into the shelter again because it was a bother to retrieve him � something I can�t guarantee so I told him he�d have to take that up with the animal warden. He actually wanted us to post a picture of his cat that says DO NOT ACCEPT THIS CAT. Unlikely to be done because he has a specific breed of cat where they all look pretty similar and this might prevent us accepting a legitimate stray. He wanted to know why his neighbor brought in the cat. I told him that since I wasn�t at the shelter either of the times she brought the cat in that I had to assume that she was concerned about the cat�s welfare and didn�t want it to wind up like the freezer full (exaggeration � it�s not full but we do usually have at least one DOA cat) of dead cats we have that lost their bout with a car or larger animal. That at least gave him pause but then he claimed that they can�t keep the cat inside. He likes to go outside and he whines when he is denied. I wanted to ask if they were incapable of keeping the cat inside � was the cat smarter than they were?, but for once I kept my big, in-trouble-getting mouth shut. He also wanted the name, address and phone # of the woman who was �stealing� his cat because he wanted to sue her. Again I told him he�d have to take it up with the animal warden. Finally he left. Jeebus, that was not what I signed up for when I started to volunteer lo those many years ago. I love the animals � hate the people. In other news the belly dance costumes came and I have but one word to describe the pants: Hammertime. Tam! would use two words: CLOWN PANTS. I have horrible images of several of the shorter troupe members (myself included) tripping over the puddle of fabric that has pooled around my ankles as we try to execute one of our slow spins. Can anyone out there sew? Yesterday 2:44 p.m. - 2007-10-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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