Patty O' Catt

Yet another encounter with yet another crazy person has caused what I intended to be a good deed to go terribly, terribly wrong! How do these people continue to find me, and why am I always the last to realize just how crazy they are!?!

I spent the summer waiting tables on the patio of the small neighborhood restaurant where I work, and began noticing a small, rail-thin tortie cat who would show up at closing time each evening-- like clockwork-- scavenging for crumbs and any morsels of food that messy customers may have left behind. Being the animal lover that I am, I began saving little bits of chicken or steak for the tiny visitor, when it became apparent that she wasn't going to be leaving any time soon. She was quite skittish so I wasn't able to touch her, which is when I decided that I would rent a trap from the shelter where I volunteer to have her spayed and-- if it turns out she wasn't feral-- possibly admitted to the shelter.

I happened to mention my plans to a regular who lives in the neighborhood who told me she had also seen the cat and had the same idea. She told me not to rent a trap, that she could borrow one from her friend. Next thing I know, she has trapped the cat and taken her into the spay/neuter clinic. Turns out she wasn't feral at all; she had already been spayed and was likely an abandoned house cat. With the weather turning colder and patio season ending, she couldn't continue fending for herself outdoors. She asked me if I could keep the cat for a day or two, as she was planning to house the cat in her garage until she could be admitted into a shelter, but was having a garage sale that weekend. Of course I agrees, setting "patio cat" up in the bathroom of my 350 square-foot apartment. Well, days turned into weeks, and I still had this tiny, terrified cat in my bathroom while the lady who trapped her keeps changing her story as to why she can't take her, despite the fact that she has a house with locations such as the "guest room" and the "upstairs bathroom".

When it came time for me to leave for China, a spot still hadn't opened up in either of the shelters we were working with, so I told the lady that she had to take her. She said she'd be by the night before I left to pick her up, which turned out to be about an hour after I had planned to leave on the day of my trip; I had to cab it to the airport. Along with the cat, the trap, and the supplies, I handed this woman an envelope of money I had collected from my coworkers to cover the admission fee into one of the shelters, should she be placed before I got back.

To make a long, weird story as brief as possible, a spot finally opened up for Patty O' Catt the day after I returned. I called crazy lady to tell her that, which is when she told me that she already had an appointment to admit her to the other shelter and to cancel the appointment I had made. Also, she said she had $450 worth of extensive dental work done on the cat while I was gone, and anything more I was able to pitch in would be great. I freaked out at this point, because: a) because I had never agreed to pay for dental work, which I had told her (on multiple occasions) that b) my shelter friends would have done upon her admission.

The next day I get a call from my shelter, saying that they had gotten a nasty phone call from this lady ("I was really nasty", she later boasted to me, to which I could only respond, "why!?!"), saying that I should have never cancelled her admission appointment and that she had to get rid of Patty O'Catt right away. So my shelter friends rearranged their plans once again, and admitted the cat. When I came in to volunteer the next week, I was met with furious gazes from the admissions counselors. Turns out that a third person-- the lady who loaned us the trap-- had come forward, saying the cat was hers all along and that we had no right to admit it (um, nice try, but no). Then she says Patty O. was a feral cat that she was helping to socialize (not true), then she says that she has already found people to adopt her (also not true). At any rate, she had helped the other lady pay for the dental surgery and because she had vet records, they had to relinquish Patty O'Catt to this woman, who turned around and begged the shelter where she volunteers (who the other lady was also "really nasty" to over the phone) to admit the cat. I was horrified-- I thought the goal was to get the cat off the street before winter... wasn't the mission already accomplished?

I'm not sure what happened to Patty O'Catt, but I do hope she's better off now than she was on the patio. On the bright side, my shelter was then able to admit another deserving cat-- a pitiful creature found living in back of a strip club-- who has since been named Tassels. What I can't bring myself to ask is whether the shelter ever got the money I gave crazy lady for Patty O' Catt's admission... Once, she told me that she gave it to my shelter, but then she told me that she and her middle-aged frenemy (the one with the trap who was so insulting to my shelter friends) put it toward the cost of the dental surgery. I suspect the latter is true, but I don't have the heart to ask... She has since avoided coming into the restaurant on the nights I'm working. Will I live and learn? Maybe. If another stray cat needs my help getting off the street, I'm sure I will help, but next time, I hope I have enough sense to go it alone!