In two days tax returns are due and I'm sure that many people spent the weekend slaving over the numbers. We did our taxes early but we got a new rescue cat this weekend and if you read below, you will see that the hated paperwork is on a par with doing the taxes.
From Mellow Out--Lessons Learned From Household Cats:
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We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
Wernher von Braun
Paperwork Is Evil
This book is about the influence that my cats have had on me. So, in terms of full disclosure, my cats did not teach me to despise paperwork. I learned about the evils of paperwork when I entered the Air Force at seventeen years old. But that wasn’t the last time I faced unnecessary paper pushing.
Practically all of my adult life I have been a classroom teacher specializing in reading, English, and ESL. People around me ranted and raved about policy changes and paperwork, but I closed my classroom door and did my own thing. When I got surveys and junk like that in the mail, I would just ignore them. I would even laugh when the new dentist required me to fill out the medical form. He wanted to know, among other things, if I was mentally ill and in counseling. Was he afraid that I would attack him? Another dentist’s form asked if I had taken Viagra twenty-four hours before the initial appointment.
Most of the time, I fill out the forms with all their ridiculous items to benefit someone else. I filled out the house loan form because my wife wanted a house. My kids wanted to play sports so I filled out the form. Do understand that I hate doing this.
My attitude changed to one of grudging acceptance on a cold Saturday morning, December 27, 2008. We were thinking about getting another cat to keep our current one company. My wife and I walked into one of the big box pet stores. Signs directed the customer to the rabbit, dog, reptile and cat sections. It’s hard to believe that there can be so many kinds of dog and cat foods. At the front of the store were ten open cages and a large sign announcing the 13th Street Cat Rescue Adoption Fair.
Two women were standing around, and one looked very official. So, I walked up to her and made it perfectly clear that we were only looking. Her long, slender face and posture conveyed that “we shall see” look. There was no way that this woman would get the best of me. I planned to go home empty-handed, period.
My wife made the foolish mistake of sitting on the floor in front of the cages while the woman enthusiastically explained about the different cats. As she was talking about the first cat, out came a brown and white tabby with a clipped ear, a wimpy tail and an absolutely beautiful face. She jumped into my wife’s lap and then all of a sudden we heard this loud purr. That was it. I knew that my macho behavior would be no match for the purring occurring in my wife’s lap.
After a few minutes, the woman returned with a with a big smile on her face and a clipboard. The cat adoption application form was attached. With the cat firmly in her lap, my wife and I proceeded to fill out the form. There was a bevy of information, including employer, owner or renter of your home, the name of a veterinarian to serve as a reference and then the heavy questions. My wife read these questions aloud. “What would you do in case of a divorce?”
“How could we get a divorce?” I replied. “The cat would then be homeless, and we couldn’t allow that.”
“I’ll write that we have friends who will take care of the cat,” my wife responded. “The second question is easy because it’s about surrendering a cat to an animal shelter and we’ve never done that.”
“I’d castrate myself before I would allow my cat to be taken to an animal shelter,” I said it loud enough that the volunteer could hear me. She smiled.
“Finally,” my wife said, “we have to certify that all of the information on the form is true and correct or the adoption will not be approved.”
“What?” I said trying to look as incredulous as possible. “Me, lie on a form provided by a cat rescue organization? I’d rather go to prison first.”
The woman put the cat back in the cage, took a refundable deposit for $125.00 and said that she would call us. I guess they had to do a background check. Surprisingly, they did not ask for our fingerprints.
At five o’clock, the woman called to tell us that we had been approved and that she was bringing the cat over to our house. She arrived thirty minutes later, and we rushed the cat into our spare bedroom so that the cats wouldn’t meet too soon. Now it was time for more paperwork. We had to sign a contract. There were ten clauses in the contract and several of them were a tad bit ridiculous. One said that we agreed not to declaw the cat. OK, that one was fair.
Another said that we were making this commitment for the rest of the cat’s life and that we understood it could be twenty years or more. This doesn’t make any sense! You can throw your kids out after eighteen years, but you have to keep the cat for over twenty.
If you have an indoor/outdoor cat, which we do, we had to keep the cat inside for a month and then supervise to be sure that the cat is inside at night. What would happen if the cat stayed out all night? Would I have to restrict her to the bedroom? Maybe I should take her phone away? The next article stated that the 13th Street people could come into my home for the next twenty years to check on the cat. Finally, if we failed to follow all of these rules, they had the right to reclaim the cat.
The woman left, and I sat there reflecting on the ridiculous paperwork. In the end I came to realize that if something is important, you just have to suck it up and do it. However, I still don’t feel less angry, and it didn’t help that I needed to do the paperwork before I could learn the lessons of life from observing the cats.
While I was having a fit over this stupidity, the cat was purring. Maybe I should have learned that positive lesson from the cat: no matter how much you hate the paperwork, be calm and just purr.
Rescue Stats 2017
291 cats spayed/neutered
+ 125 cats via our trap loan program
392 cats adopted
Rescue Stats 2016
260 cats spayed/neutered
+ 130 cats via our trap loan program
341 cats adopted
