Emotional Blackmail

I realize that I am behind on posting about the folx that I have but came across a new situation.

Perusing Craigslist (managed to sell the Martin's cage) I saw an ad up for a young hairless lady. As I have this fascination for hairless rats, I had to find out more.

As always, the kid brought the rat home, mother is kind of horrified, kid gets bored, mother doesn't want to do the work and doesn't care for the animal and wants it gone. Yep. Okay. The rat is alone and in a hammie cage. Yep. Okay. As always, we have too many but can make the room. Husband's eyes roll the entire night.

After a few emails and me doing the majority of the work to get this done, we are set to meet at noon. Get a call about 45 min before the meeting. Kids running mom around, no time, too busy, disorganized. After a few minutes of trying to see about another time, another day I suggest that she call me back in the evening when she has a better idea of what is happening tomorrow for a time.

I remain polite even though to husband afterwards I get on my rant: No wonder the kid(s) have no sense of responsibility. Good thing I have no kids because hell would have frozen over before anything got done for them before this rat was taken care of. BLAH BLAH BLAH. %#@$%%^

We had kind of planned our day around the meet because we had a ton of other things to do ourselves. We can handle this. We end up hitting the mall in the spare time and spend money. Yippee.

Anyways, husband asks me what my inconvenience tolerance is.

Hence the title of this blog post - Emotional Blackmail.

I said well, I guess fairly limitless. I get this ill feeling in my stomach thinking about the poor animal getting the brunt of these a**h*les inability to be responsible and considerate. I guess as much as I can personally do I can't. I said I can't force the woman to show up to give me the animal.

Little did I know.

It is now Sunday night and no word. It's like they fell off the face of the earth. I did ask husband to call before we were heading out for a few hours to see if they were around. No answer. No call last night and as of now, no call. The woman wanted the rat out by Monday. I guess it isn't happening. I certainly hope it isn't going to be dumped anywhere out of "convenience's sake".

I couldn't make the call because I couldn't guarantee my level of politeness would have stayed appropriate at this point in time. We can't do anything more because at this point it would be highly inappropriate for us to keep badgering them. I can only hope that there was someone else more convenient for them to drop the rat off with, not just at a dead end or the SPCA doorstep.

This is why I do what I do - people like this. I am worried for the future in general. People like this are going to be in charge one day. We are already seeing the fruits of bad upbringing. Yes, I know it's just a $10 rat but it is still a being that feels fear and pain. We domesticated this animal and took away it's survival skills and then to... well... the most polite thing I can say is "be irresponsible".

I don't know. I'm at a loss. Between the disregard for the animal and the disregard for me as a person (courtesy, anyone?), I'm not sure what to think. I relook the conversations. I ask husband (who heard my side of all conversations and saw the emails - as he always does with possible newbie rats) if maybe I was rude or gave her a bad feeling or spooked her. He said that I did nothing wrong, that there was no reason for this except her shortcomings. She seemed concerned about making sure the rat wouldn't become food. That's why I am baffled. If nothing wrong was said or bad feelings, then.....

I just hope the poor rat will be okay.