I was driving to work one Friday morning two weeks ago, and
only yards from my house on my own street I felt a bump under my car. I froze and looked in my rear view mirror to see an
orange cat flailing in the road behind me. It quickly ran across the street
into a neighbor’s yard, and a nauseous feeling swelled in my stomach.
A cat had literally ran underneath my car—I didn’t see
it and I didn’t even have time react and try to slow down, much less avoid it.
Luckily I wasn’t going very fast, since it’s a narrow residential road, but I
immediately felt tears well up in my eyes because I didn’t know if the cat was
okay or not. A million things were running through my mind. Where is the cat
now? Oh, no, I hope I can find it! What vet will I take it to? It's Friday, so our
staff vet and vet techs wouldn’t be at work that day so I’d have to see if a local vet would
help me. Who does the cat belong to? I work at a humane society and commit every day
to helping animals—how could I, of all people, have just hit a cat?!
I stopped my car on the street and jumped out to try to find
the cat. Two ladies were on their morning walks close by, so I asked if they’d
seen where the cat went. One didn't respond and walked away unphased, while the other showed me where she saw it.
She frustrated me because she didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal to find it,
which made me angry. She said, “You’re so sweet--I can’t believe you actually
stopped!” I thought, who wouldn’t stop?
But I also knew the answer to that. Not everyone feels as passionate about
the well-being of animals, nor would some people know what to do if they did stop.
