Wednesday, October 6, 2010

In Defense of Poor Fiscal Decision Making

Ask any of my friends . . . I'm TERRIBLE with managing money.  Suck at it, in fact.  So, I worry that one of these days, as my 'older age' creeps up on me, these poor decisions will come back to haunt me.  Or, not . . .

Last week, I was doing one of my volunteer days out at the shelter (Dorothy O'Connor Pet Adoption Center http://www.docpac.net/ ), where my duties are to play receptionist, answer the phone, and generally direct traffic at the front door, when this young woman came in carrying a beautiful little seal lynx point kitten in  a carrier.  

"Can you take her?  She has diarrhea and her butt stays raw and I don't want my 8 month old getting something from her?" 

Sally, our director, was out, so I punted to Sarah, the assistant director, instead.  Both of us suggested a trip to the vet to determine the underlying problem.  Nope, they'd taken her once, that hadn't fixed it, and they were getting rid of her. 

"See how sweet she is?"  The girl proceeded to take her out of the carrier and snuggle her, and little "Pearl" made bisquits and purred the whole time.  No way could I have given her up, but, hey, that's why I'm a crazy cat lady, I guess.

Sarah and I again suggested treating her.  Uh-Uh.  She's outta there. 

Sarah couldn't accept her for intake, since we were basically full, with a fresh load of kitties just rescued from Animal Control.  What a heartbreaker.  Off the girl went to turn her over to Animal Control.  I know they do their best, with what they have to work with, but an ill kitten in that environment isn't going to last long, and they don't have the resources to treat the sick ones.  It broke my heart.

As soon as she left, I went into Sarah's office, "I'll give you $50 towards her treatment, if we can get her."  Sarah wanted to keep her as badly as I did, I think, but she couldn't make the decision to take in a cat that obviously needed treatment, without Sally's approval.  That would pretty well clean out my account, but what the hell, payday was only 8 days away, right?

So we settled in to wait for Sally.

I putzed around on the computer for a while, and logged in to check my PayPal balance for the heck of it.
WOW, where'd that money come from????    One of the nice folks who purchased one of my kittens decided to prepay their balance, even though the kitten won't go home until January.  Hallelujah!  I ran in to see Sarah.  "Tell Sally I can give $100 if we can go get that little cat from AC."  Maybe that'll sweeten the pot enough. 

In the meantime, Alicia mentioned that she thought she had a friend who might be able to foster the kitten. (She obviously couldn't go into the main cat population with a health issue.)

So we waited.  Sally arrived back from lunch.  We swooped in on her, like a bunch of six year olds, wanting to bring a puppy home from our travels.  "Can we go get her, pleeeaaaassseeeeeee?????" 

Sally wavered, caught between the 'smart' fiscal decision for the shelter, and our pleading.  Then she caved to our sad little puppy dog eyes, and begging looks.  "OK, I'll go get her; we'll figure it out."  Sally Kuecker was officially my very most favorite person in the world last Thursday.  What a big heart!

So, with my account $100 lighter, I went home to explain to Steve why we'd be a little poorer than what we planned.  My hubby, who has a big heart, too, just said "Well, it's only money". 

So, I came to work today, and found that little "Pearl" is now "Shadow" since she's been following her foster mom around like one.  She's doing great after treatment, and her foster mom has fallen so in love with her, she's going to adopt her. 

That's what I call a happy ending.   You can't buy that, no matter how much money you have.  Worth it every minute of every day of every year. 

No comments:

Post a Comment