I was going to write about my drive from just outside Crater Lake to Susanville, California yesterday. But this just happened to a friend of mine. I’m upset about it, and I feel like ranting about it here.
I met Willow during my first winter in Quartzsite. At the time she was living with her dad, Murph, in Courage the Cowardly Bus. Last year he bought her her own van, a rusty old Ford she named Mr. Slugworth. She also met Lister, loved the idea of a van cat, and adopted more than one of her own. I’m not sure whether she credited or blamed me for it, but either way works. She now travels with Gabe, her fiance, as well. I last saw them just over a month ago in Montana, where I spent a night with them before moving on to Rocky Mtn Roll.
Not long after we parted ways, one of the cats disappeared. Willow suspected he wandered off, as cats do sometimes. We put the word out and kept our scanners peeled, but there was no sign of Catticus.
This morning, Willow shared this. An animal rescuer snatched up Catticus, and instead of returning him decided to adopt him to a new home instead. Willow was staying in an RV park at the time. Her rusty old Ford wasn’t as shiny and pretty as the gazillion-dollar campers and RVs there, so this person assumed that Catticus “had a rough go at life.” She knew exactly where he came from because she even said “the previous owner lived in a car.”
Mr. Slugworth is not a pretty van. He’s old, rusty, and has whimsical artwork of a slug painted on the side. Mr. Slugworth would not fit in well at an RV park, where people have expectations of newer, prettier RVs. Many RV parks even have a maximum age limit on rigs that are allowed to park there, though clearly, this one did not.
It appears that this person made some harsh judgments about the conditions Catticus was living in, and took it upon herself to “rescue” him. It’s okay to break into a vehicle to rescue a pet who is obviously in distress from overheating, but this was not the case here. You can clearly see the fans rigged up in one of the back windows to keep the temperature down (for a fraction of the price of my Maxxair roof vent). The only distress here was in the “rescuer’s” mind based on the appearance of Willow’s van. It’s true that they don’t have a lot, but they always made sure the cats were well taken care of. Catticus was quite happy and friendly when I met him last month. He “disappeared” only a week later.
I’m not worried about this happening to Lister. My previous van looked good enough, and my Transit is practically brand new. People don’t assume I’m living in poverty, because I’m not. I doubt anyone at this RV park, including this “rescuer,” would’ve batted an eyelash about the conditions Lister and I live in. Both Willow and I have vans that our parents bought for us. It’s unfair that society looks so far down on the owner of an older van that isn’t as pretty as mine, but is the best Murph could afford. The old saying that you shouldn’t judge someone based on their appearance couldn’t be more true than it is in this case. It isn’t fair, and I’m mad about it.
Smokey Da Van 