Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower
Yes, congrats on the kid. Speaking of a kid, I have a hypothetical ethical dillema. Assume for the purposes of the hypothetical that I have a hypothetical wife and a hypothetical three and a half y.o. daughter.
On Sunday, my wife's sister finds a kitten. Maybe 4-7 mos. old. My wife's sister has cats and does not want them exposed to the kitten in case the kitten has Leukemia or whatever. So my wife, not thinking it through, agrees to keep the cat while her sister looks for the owner. Of course, my daughter immediately falls in love with the cat. We have to tell her repeatedly that we are looking for the real owner and when we find the real owner, we have to give the cat back. This is devastating to my daughter. When pressed by my daughter's repeated questioning, we admit that, if we cannot find the real owner, we can keep the cat.
My wife's sister drops the ball on looking for the owner, so on Monday, we contact the humane society, fill out paperwork at animal control, and put up posters in the neighborhood where the cat was found, which is a bit of a sketchy neighborhood. In the meantime, my daughter has become completely stressed out about this. Her first question every morning is if we got a call from the cat's owners during the night. If the cat disappears into the basement for a while, she asks if the owners have come to get it. This morning, she insisted that we had the cat long enough and that it was ours. I said we were still looking for the owners and we might have to give it back, and she started to cry.
This afternoon, my wife gets a call. "Uh, yeah, I'm calling about the cat. The kitty. My name's Rodney. Call me at _______." That's it. He did not sem particularly grateful or relieved, just kind of matter of fact. My wife calls me and asks what to do. I say to call him and, if it seems appropriate, you can mention that our daughter has become attached and we would be willing to keep the cat. So my wife calls and Rodney says he saw the poster and that it's his cat. He does not say much more than that, and my wife mentions that our daughter has become attached and if there is any reason he does not want the cat, we would keep it. He says he has become attached, too. My wife says, O.K., we'll bring him back. He says, O.K., but it is a "her," not a "him." My wife says, no, it is actually a boy. He says he looked "back there" but could not see much. My wife explains that, although small, there are definitely boy parts there. Then, he says: "Well, O.K. You can keep him. It is my gift to you and your daughter. My landlord said I could only have a girl cat because boy cats spray all over. But you should know how I got the cat. I have only had the cat a week. It just came running into my apartment from the street a week ago. I did not even know it was missing because I work so much, but someone put one of your flyers in my apartment. Anyway, you can take down the posters and keep the cat."
My wife thanked him profusely and then they hung up. Of course, there is probably some previous owner out there. And the way it went down with Rodney was definitely weird. What should we do? Keep looking for the prior owners? Take down the posters and assume the cat is ours? The humane society and animal control still have the cat's information, although nobody had reported him missing as of Monday. What if Rodney changes his mind?
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