As many of you know, for the past four months I've been trapping feral cats from a house down the block--29 so far. What I do is lure the cats into a humane trap and then transport them the next day to Fixnation, which is a nonprofit organization that spays/neuters and vaccinates the cats all for free. I then release the cats back on property they came from.
Just last week I managed to get 5 female cats spayed from their home. You might not be aware of this, but the potential damage from 5 unspayed female cats is horrific. Because cats can reproduce several times a year, and kittens mature quickly, just 2 feral cats (the wild offspring of domestic cats) can quickly become 2,000. In fact, the feline reproduction statistics are staggering. 2 uncontrolled breeding cats produce: 2 litters a year, at a survival rate of 2.8 kittens per litter. Continued breeding will produce 12 cats the first year, 66 cats the second year, 2,201 cats in the third year, 3,822 cats in the fourth year, 12,680 cats in the fifth year, and on and on . . .
Pretty awful, wouldn't you agree?
Now the people who live in this house are definitively NOT helpful. In order for me to entice the cats into the traps, they need to be hungry, which means these people need to NOT FEED the cats on the day that I am trapping. It's not that hard, right? They know I'm coming, so they just skip the breakfast and dinner for the cats for ONE day. It's not like the cats are going to starve. In fact, the cats can all have dinner after I'm done trapping around 9:00 pm.
Do these people facilitate the trapping process (which is VERY wearying!) by withholding food for one little day? No. Of course not. In fact, each person in the house blames the other for feeding the cats, and one of them even keeps placing massive platters of tasty wet food down NEXT TO my traps, AND their dog keeps sticking his snout in the traps and setting them off as well. Is it asking too much for them to just keep the dog in ONE evening for a few hours and to wait to feed? I don't think so!
And yet, in order for me to continue trapping, I need to be polite and accommodating so that I can have permission to go onto their property. It literally drives me temporarily insane! All I want to do is lambast them for their selfish irresponsibility, but I have to smile and make nice...
When have you had to bite your tongue in the name of diplomacy when all you really wanted to do was point out all the ways in which someone or something was just WRONG!?
http://www.textually.org/tv/archives/images/set3/ANGRY%20FACE-1.gif
The only situation I can think of is when I am watching my sister play video games. When she makes a stupid mistake that is avoidable(at least in my terms), I just fell like saying, "WHY IN THE WORLD DID YOU DO THAT?!?!" But I just hit my head a couple of times so I don't have to make the house collapse.
ReplyDeleteI think it's neat how you trap cats and get them neutered. It's very impressive to me how many kittens cats can reproduce.
ReplyDeleteOne of the situations that I can think of is that almost every time we have got to go somewhere my brother takes a little to long. He is either siting in front of the mirror with his tooth brush in hand signing.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me want to scream "WHAT IS TAKING YOU SO LONG!?!" The only problem is every time I do it he goes to our mom in tears and I get in trouble because he is taking so long!
We have really annoying neighbors too. They party until 4 in the morning. Since they live on the hill above us, they throw stuff down on us.
ReplyDeleteEXAMPLES:
A ball fell in our pool (the ball didn't float)
They threw a paint ball onto our roof tiles (it stained them) Gee. A present from above. :)
Sometimes i wish i could go yell at them. But that wouldn't be civil.
The main time when this happens is when my little brother annoys me. When that happens, I just want to take out all the anger that I've been channeling out on him. You might think that it's bad to channel anger, but you don't have a choice when no one will listen, and in this situation, punching the pillow does not help. Also, when I have get-togethers with my friends, he is always butting in, and when we say we want some time alone, he says, "But mommy said you have to include me." The reason that this make me mad is that whenever he has a playdate, he always complains about me takin over his playdate.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I feel really annoyed when other people my age think I am so young compared to them (I turned 10 two months ago) and they make sarcastic comments like "Yeah, okay, whatever," and ignore me.
ReplyDeleteAnother example is when I make a silly idea (Hey, I'm not a pink pony, everyone!) to amuse myself when I am working, and someone tells everyone, and 5 minutes later everyone is yelling and screaming about it!
Here is a funny quote that an astronaut said when a kid asked him what he should do to become an astronaut:
"Get the best of an education that you can get!" How ironic.
I mostly must bite my tongue when my sister is being "calm" around me. Sometimes she feels like debating and winning, but when she is on the verge of losing the debate, she will simply say, "I don't want to argue right now." or something along those lines. I always think to myself, 'Wel,l of course you don't feel like arguing. You're losing.' It also makes me think of all the times when she annoys me, but I still feel like I must feel sorry for her. One example of that is when Angela (my sister) will complain how much her head hurts, how her braces are making her teeth hurt, how the people at her school are sometimes so aggravating, and how some people on her football team are just dim-witted. I do not complain about such things, even though sometimes they are evident in my daily life. Gee, it seems like almost everything on here is about siblings. I didn't know they could be that annoying. XD
ReplyDeleteWe have neighbors who like to party until the morning too. Its so annoying because they play music and scream YA!!! at the top of their lungs. My old piano teacher's neighbor had a garage band. When I was playing the piano at her house I would hear bad electric guitar playing and people randomly playing the drums AND people singing like dying animals! It was really annoying. Anyway, I am really impressed how that organization spays and neuters cats for free, thats really nice
ReplyDeleteAs I am writing this the person who lives in the building next to us is playing the same song on the piano OVER and OVER again. And they are not terribly good, either. And in that same building, there are kids who scream at every passing whim, to the point where we want to dump water onto their heads (we are on the third floor of our building, and they are on the bottom floor of theirs.) One time one of the kids was shouting "More banana!" at the top of his lungs for hours on end. By that time my mom wanted to throw down a rotten banana that she was keeping in the freezer for some bizarre unknown reason, maybe for this very purpose. A question for you, Mrs. S: Do these people even want their cats spayed and neutered?
ReplyDeletehi bella--
ReplyDeletei think they want the animals taken care of but without having to do anything themselves, which includes altering their feeding patterns for even a day. so yes, but at my and everyone else's inconvenience...
welcome back from the horse ranch!
Personally, I hold my tongue 0% of the time. Well... actually if I start thinking about it, I have a neighbor right across from my house that complains a whole lot. About 3 times a day, and about the weirdest things too. It gets me pretty angry yet if I said something they'd probably complain about that too.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. It's kind of hard to think about when i had to bite my tongue. It's kind of hard appreciating someone who insults harry potter whenever they're around me. (I love harry potter!!!!!!!!)
ReplyDeleteAbout the cats, my grandma is allergic to cats but her housekeeper loves them. my grandmas hoouse is kind of like a home for wild cats. she has tons of wild ones, and her housekeeper lays out food for them. theres this one really sweet house cat that lives there because he ran away from his old house. her housekeeper does what you do with trapping and neutering and spaying. we havent had kittens there in a long time but one time on of the cats there had kittens and there were a ton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they would take in the cats if she wasnt allergic.
when i was six and 1/2 i was at this park and there was this big hill covered in bushes. As i started to climb, there was a girl who looked about my age. How old are you she asked me. Six i replied not wanting to go into detail by saying I was six and one half. Well I'M six and a half so you cant come up here. Not wanting to start an argument i just went down the hill. Now I would have shot something back like who do you think you are? or have just ignored her. I also get really mad at Ava when she wears my clothes (not normally a big deal) and then when I do something such as put on her hat, she has a huge meltdown. One time i sat in "her spot" and she got really mad and kicked my face. One of my teeth went flying across the room aka she knocked my tooth out and didnt get in trouble... no joke delilah is a eye witness.
ReplyDeleteAlso in diary of a Wimpy kid. Greg heard Rodrick say a bad word, so he told his mom. His mom asked him to spell the word so he did. I the end Greg got soap in his mouth for knowing how to spell a bad word and Rodrick got off scot free... ironic isnt it?
ReplyDeleteI watch icarly and I was thinking about an episode where Freddie makes a bet with Sam that she won't insult him for a whole week. That's really hard for Sam because she HATES freddie. she has to bite her tongue when she wants to insult him otherwise she has to pay freddie 5 dollars which she doesnt want to. freddie keeps setting her up to insult him the episode is really good but she has to bite her tongue alot. one time she gets so mad she has to scream!
ReplyDeletein an episode of a tv show or even a book i think it always makes the story more interesting when the character bites his tongue. its even more fun if the character tries to bite his tongue but is unsuccessfull and starts yelling!!