Drama: my unwanted pet.

Who needs me?

Yes, my dearest reader, I come to the point that my pet is unwanted, very unwanted as a matter of fact. How did it happen? Gradually, little by little my circumstances, my life has changed drastically from what it was, and now I have to make a very hard decision - to get rid of my pet or not. He became a source of my frustration, anger and god knows what else. Bad for me, bad for him and not good for the rest of my family.
  We adopted our cat from some shelter in a small town we were living at that time. He was a fully grown up cat. I did not know his background, his way of life before shelter and how long he stayed there but I am sure it was not cream and honey at all. By the way if you ever decide that you need a cat, please adopt one from shelter because it's a bad place for a cat. He needs freedom, ability to roam around and explore, not to sit in a cage. He is not a lizard or tarantula, he needs a lot of space to explore and to feel comfortable in it.
  Just, please, do not adopt a grown up pet, unless you are very gentle, patient with pets and people and other members in your family are the same - gentle and patient, because you'll need a lot of patience and love to give to an adopted animal. In my family it was not the case.
  We adopted our Homer(we gave him that name) to keep company to our another she-pet and from the very beginning she could not stand poor Homer. She hissed at him like a snake and tried to hit him and made sure he never came closer than a foot to her. She prevented him from eating his food whenever she could. She made him feel very unwelcome. It was just the beginning for poor Homer.
 He was outdoorsy type of a cat. At that time we were living in a big house in a small town where he could freely go outside and roam around our house and explore our big backyard. He was not stupid, he learned pretty fast his territory(our territory) and where his bread and butter was hidden(so to speak). He was not a quiet type of a cat, he was very vocal, but in a big house it was not a problem, and he was outside a lot, never mind weather (same as my children by the way).
  In ten years my children grew up, my husband lost his health and regretfully we lost our big old house and free roaming territory. We had to move to a big city to survive, with everybody crammed in a small apartment where you cannot go outside where and when you want to (at least if you are a cat).
 Since then Homer's companion (other cat) died from old age, people who paid attention to Homer moved. People who do not want to pay attention or do not have time for him are still there but... Who needs that 10 year old cat who meows all the time, who is bored to death sitting on the third floor of a small apartment without any escape to outside world?
  I understand, I pity him, but I do not have time for him and he understands that too, he is not stupid. He is extremely sensitive, and he cries, and cries, and cries... And he does not trust anybody, even me who feeds him. And I shout at him because I am tired and frustrated, because I work 7 days a week, because I leave house at 8am and come home at 8pm and I need rest. My poor unwanted unloved pet...

Where should I go?

 What can I do ? Shelter is not an option, they will keep him for a couple of days may be and then they will put him to sleep, because no one is going to adopt him. There are lots of cute little kittens without problems there. No one likes him at home. He is just an ordinary cat, black and white half-domestic scared cat  who annoys everybody. He just does not deserve to die and I feel responsible for him - he has been my pet for 10 years and  I cannot stand him most of the time. Such a drama....

Things we do not need, but we want them for sure.

To survive we do not need a lot of things. Water, bread, air to breathe, shelter from cold and rain. A hot stove to cook a dinner and to warm your hands after long and wearisome day. Some clothes on our back. But in reality we need more, we want more. We want something that is ours. Our car, our home.

We want things, special things, that are beautiful and unique, or just luxurious and fashionable. We want a car to move around and not to depend on public transportation, we want a house or an apartment that belongs to us, not just a rental place.

We (especially women) want nice clothes and more than enough of them, so we could change our image and look differently all the time. But sometimes that choices take too much time and money from us and we cannot resist temptation to get more than we need and pay more than we can afford to obtain that. And we end up with lots of debts and frustrations, and with plenty of unnecessary things we cannot get rid of. Or some people become sick with hoarding.

 I never even heard about such affliction in my old country where we had the only choice usually - one type of a product, one brand and probably limited so you can just buy one piece, or one kilo or one thing of it (like one loath of bread) even if you need more. It's just 2 choices - to have it or to have not, to buy it or to buy not. So you could make an instant decision without complex procedure of making up your mind what color, size or brand  to buy. Just grab it until somebody else does and be happy, and take good care of that thing or it might get ruined by something and then you have to live without it until another occasion. Is it a good thing or not when you have multiple choices?

 I guess some things are really can be more simple. We do not need 50 brands of toothpaste or 30 brands of bread or soap at the store. Or may be 100 brands of cookies or cereals in colorful boxes. They are not good nutritional product anyway. And they are basically the same, just boxes and prices are different. So far if I met a really healthy cookie, the price was usually astronomically high, so I never had a chance to appreciate the taste - beyond my league, sorry.

Well, right now so many thins are just made in China, and there is not much quality in them. You cannot expect to buy a winter coat and wear it for 10 years in such way that it still looks good on you after that. Or shoes/boots that you can wear for 5 years and be happy with it. Things are not the same now. I used to buy boots that you could wear for 5 years but they were not made in China... 

A lot of choices probably is a good thing anyway, i just do not want to spend so much time at the store, I value my time and my money. So buying a complete crap even a cheap one is not nice either.

 I bought a bed in April 2010. It is January now and I already giving away parts of it, as I am going to throw away it soon. My mattress is absolute garbage. All springs are sticking into my ribs already. And I assumed that a bed supposed to last a long time, not half a year. Do I want a new bed? No, I don't. Do I have to buy it? I am afraid I have to.

I do not like sleeping on springs. Not much fun after all. So what is sustaining our economy - our buying power, or existence of credit cards, as our buying power is close to zero, as most of us are in a survival mode anyway? Well, I am all for choices, for lots of choices - in employment possibilities, in cheap housing, in healthy nutritional food.  Wishful thinking, I am afraid, it's not going to happen. not in my lifetime.