No more cats.

Well, I just took the cats back.

This time, I tried calling ahead (nobody answered), I found a way to put a luggage strap on the Pet Taxi, and I got off at the correct train stop, so that made things a little easier. Okay, a lot.

But when I told them the kitties hadn't had their second shots or been spayed/neutered yet, they got mad at me. "We never take foster kittens back before they've been spayed." WELL. And I kind of mumbled something about the Humane Society being far, and I have to carry the cats, and they're destroying my house, and it sounded like a lame excuse.

And I don't think the lady understood that when I bought a pumpkin yesterday, I couldn't carry it because my forearms are still bruised, and so are my hips. And she obviously didn't understand that last night I had to put sweats on top of my pajamas and then sleep with a heating pad, because I was out of clean blankets and even my comforter needs to be washed, and so does my couch. And she couldn't have understood that I can't put my bathmat in the bathroom, my shoes on the floor, or my books on the couch. And she definitely didn't understand that my new-to-me couch which had zero snag marks when I got it is now covered in snag marks. Even though I say "no" whenever kitties start to bother it.

Obviously she didn't understand that kitties bite me awake, or just mew and mew, or run around and I haven't slept well since I got back from Boston. And I don't think she understood that I've tried and tried to make my house smell livable, but that I can't open my windows really, because they have no screens and I can't let the cats out. She didn't understand that I gave each of the kitties individual attention at least a couple times every day so that they would feel loved, and grow up to be nice cats, for other people. She didn't understand that I was trying to help and did my best.

She didn't thank me for keeping six cats in my apartment for six weeks.

She was annoyed. She said, "They're not spayed. What am I supposed to do with them?" and I thought maybe it was a rhetorical question, because she's in charge of foster animals with the Humane Society. And like, all week long doesn't she get not-spayed cats that she's not expecting? (That's the whole idea of having a Humane Society, right?) And these ones weren't even mine. But she just looked at me, because it wasn't a rhetorical question, so I said, "Spay them?" And she said they'd have to find someone else to foster them. It was an extremely awkward conversation.

And I know I read on the fostering agreement that if I didn't take them for their shots, or if I refused to give them back, I wouldn't be allowed to foster animals and maybe not even adopt from the Humane Society ever again. So I think I may be blacklisted from the Humane Society.

Which is awful. That's like being blacklisted from volunteering at the library or at an elementary school.

So now I'm home in my catless house. And feeling awful about my best not being enough.

OOh, glimmer of hope! Just now, as I was typing this, another lady from the fostering at the Humane Society called to find out what happened. And I explained that I couldn't take them back for shots, etc, during the week because I have a new job, and the Humane Society is way far without a car, etc, and she was like, "Ohh." And she told me the kitties were "nice and fat"! And we talked about some of the mom's issues (like wishing she were an outside cat and not using the litter box), and some of the personality traits of the kitties (one of them was hissy when they tried to give it shots), etc, and it was the conversation that I had expected to have when I dropped them off.

Sigh.