When is Enough, Enough?

I am helping a neighbor who is feeding an alarming number of cats who have wandered into her backyard and found nirvana—food, blankets, a chicken coop that has been transformed into “cat” room & board. There are 16 of them—at last count. None of them spayed or neutered, none of them touchable—they all scatter when my neighbor Milly opens her sliding screen door. Those 16 cats have the potential to be 60 un-adoptable cats in no time that are in the process of creating more just like them.

When I first met Milly and became aware of her situation, I offered to help catch the cats and get them all fixed, all 16. She agreed but didn’t seem completely sold on getting this done. To her, she was just feeding cats, being a kind soul, and the cats could come and go as they pleased as far as she was concerned. A nice thought, but entirely irresponsible in the name of being kind.

I explained that if she didn’t get this done, she’d have three, four times, 10 times as many cats. That’s more food for her to buy. That hit home.

I scheduled appointments, one after the other at a clinic and we (rather, I) started to bring in the cats, as many as she could catch. This meant dropping off traps at her house the night before, J and I getting up an hour earlier than usual that day, picking up the cats at Milly’s house around 7 a.m., a 30 minute drive to the clinic, with traffic, and J possibly being late to school. Then, picking the cats up at the end of the day and bringing them back to the house to assume their nirvana life with Milly, but now at least they were not reproducing.

It was a huge undertaking that would take time, but I was willing to do it because the cats needed it, she was completely unaware of the situation she was creating that would result in many cats roaming the neighborhood, getting hit by cars, getting on people’s nerves, it was a disaster in the making. If I walked away from it all no one would fix this.

As we began trapping and going to the clinic I got to know my neighbor better. And here is the rub. She has no doorbell, and is always somewhere in the house where she can’t hear me knocking. There is no cell phone coverage at her house (just a few streets over from my house, yep, zip, “no connection” at her place), and she is, as I discovered, very unreliable. Hit or miss, either she wouldn’t answer her phone to come to the door to let me in when I arrive—knowing I am coming—she’s gets lost driving to pick up the cats (her end of the deal), so it’s not worth having her do this, or she’ll catch two cats but then once I get there the cats have already escaped by slipping through the cage wires, a cage that was meant to contain dogs, not cats, who can tiny themselves and slip out if scared. And, so, the entire plan is foiled in spite of all of my preparations.

These incidents happened with every appointment. She’d apologize, thank me for my patience, make me chicken adobo, and we’d schedule the next appointment. Meanwhile, I was getting more and more frustrated, taking it out on J who’d have to endure my wound up display of anger, getting her dinner late, and the hassle of getting up an hour earlier for the appointment each morning.

When are we done?

When does a friendship or act of kindness transform into a burden that is having a mostly negative impact on one’s life?  When does one say no more? When is enough, enough?

I tell myself one just knows when he or she is done and that last straw has been added and you’ve reached your limit. I reached this stage last night with her as once again she failed to pick up her phone. I waited with J in the car in front of our house cursing “pick up pick up! You’re expecting me!” but we went home and then she called. She suggested meeting up the next day instead and that was when I said in my head, that’s it. This is the last time.

I told her no. Tonight, I said. I went back to her house and dropped off the traps. I told her I had so much to do and she looked at me with a vacant look, as if to say what are you all worked up about?

Later that night she sent me a text thanking me for my patience. I didn’t respond.

—SBM