Mama Kitty Is Looking for Love, Protection, and a Home but All of Those Valuable Commodities Are Permanently Out of Stock with the Stingy Shopkeepers at Kibby Cobb Plaza

Mama Kitty Alone as Always in a Hostile World

"We hope with love and food that she will love us enough to let us pet her."

-- Michelle Moore

It is extremely difficult for homeless cats to make it in this world. For in addition to their daily struggle in order to procure food, water, and shelter, there are far too many other animals as well as humans who are intent upon doing them bodily harm.

Even those individuals who tramp in and out of their lives from time to time offering them temporary succor more often than not do them far more harm than good. After all, man is such a selfish egotist that even his rare displays of altruism are seldom much more than clever disguises for his far more sinister motives. 

A familiar refrain of that old song and dance is currently being played out in Jackson, a small town of thirty-three-thousand residents located sixty-four kilometers west of Ann Arbor. The protagonists in this cruel charade are a lovely orange and white female with green eyes known as Mama Kitty and the moneygrubbing merchants at Kibby Cobb Plaza on busy Kibby Road.

The exact dates are far from clear but as best it could be determined this drama began to unfold about nine years ago when Michelle Moore opened a home goods' store known as Not So Shabby, Oh! So Chic at the strip mall. It soon thereafter became her practice to store her clearance furniture out back so that customers could browse through it at their leisure while being out of her hair at the same time.

One day "years ago," one of them made an amazing discovery. "She said, 'Do you know you have kittens back here?' " the browser said to Moore according to The Citizen Patriot of Jackson on April 3rd. (See "Meet the Cat Who's Claimed the Hearts of Kibby Cobb Plaza Business Owners.")

As things  turned out, what the customer had stumbled onto was Mama Kitty and an undisclosed number of her kittens living in what is believed to have been a chest-of-drawers. "That confirmed to me that she had been living here, and we moved into her home," Moore told The Citizen Patriot.
 

If that account of events is accurate, that would make Mama Kitty about ten years old. To her credit, Moore did not rat her out to the authorities in order to have her removed and eradicated but rather she and her fellow retailers pooled their resources and had her sterilized. Although it never has been independently verified, the shopkeepers allegedly procured homes for her offspring.

 

Although a decade is a relatively long time ago, not much has changed since then. Moore and the proprietors of Prestige Hair Design, Kibby Cobb Liquor and Deli, and the Ironbark Brewing Company still are taking turns buying Mama Kitty food and tossing her table scraps. They also sometimes put out a heating pad for her in the winter and a local student has donated a box for her but that is about all the care and attention that she receives from them.

Despite the meagerness of her efforts, Moore would like the world to believe that she is a big shot philanthropist on the order of George Soros. "I'm a huge animal lover," she crowed to The Citizen Patriot.

"I don't  know how I couldn't take care of her."

At least Haley Applegate of Prestige Hair Design appears to take her obligations to Mama Kitty somewhat seriously. "Sometimes she will come into the break room and I'm like, "Oh, that means she hungry," is how that she acted out her role in this affair to The Citizen Patriot. "And when Mama Kitty comes to my door, I feed her."

There are indications, however, that the nickel and dime merchants are wearying of the burden and in that light Moore already has announced plans to install a mailbox at the plaza so that shoppers can drop off food and letters for Mama Kitty. "That's my favorite part, that we all work together to make sure she has her food, water, and needs (met)," Applegate added to The Citizen Patriot.

According to Moore, Mama Kitty is still a bit shy but she usually will stop by in order to chew the fat with store owners. "We hope with love and food that she will love us enough to let us pet her," she summed up to The Citizen Patriot. "She's part of the family here. She's really well-known."

Whereas that may be true to a certain extent, Moore and her fellow merchants talk and act as if she were a down-at-the-heel poor relation who is scarcely tolerated. First of all, neither she nor her fellow shekel chasers has been willing to provide her with a proper name.

Instead, they have resorted to disparagingly calling her "The Shabby Kitty" as well as the noncommittal "Kibby Cat" in addition to Mama Kitty. Bestowing a proper and befitting name upon a cat not only demonstrates a degree of genuine affection but ownership as well whereas refusing to do so indicates that she, despite Moore's assertion to the contrary, is still considered to be a rank outsider even after all these many years and most definitely not a bona fide member of the family.

Secondly, it is downright shameful that the merchants are so cheap that they begrudge Mama Kitty her meager rations. Even if they were willing to feed her Fancy Feast® three times a day that would only set them back a measly US$21 a week while a daily saucer of milk would add less than US$5 to that already insignificant total. 

The merchants' niggardliness is reminiscent of the behavior of a miser that John Lennon once described in the following unflattering terms:

"Mean Mister Mustard sleeps in the park

Shaves in the dark to save paper

Sleeps in a hole in the road

Saving up to buy some clothes

Keeps a ten bob note up his nose

Such a mean old man."

Thirdly, it is beyond disgraceful that none of them have been willing to take Mama Kitty home with them to live. That glaring oversight additionally casts doubt on their declaration that they found homes for her kittens. It is way too late for them to do anything about the kittens now but there is still enough sand left in the hourglass for them to do right by Mama Kitty by getting her off the street and into a safe and loving home.

Kibby Cobb Plaza Is Located on Busy Kibby Road

Fourthly, they surely must be aware that they are playing Russian roulette with her fragile life by so stubbornly refusing to afford her any protection at all. At any moment she easily could fall prey to a motorist either in the plaza's parking lot or on Kibby Road, an unleashed dog, wild animals, the elements, or the machinations of an ailurophobe.

In that light, the presence at the plaza of, not one, but two alcohol dispensaries is particularly disturbing in that booze and cats are a bad mix under any circumstances. (See Cat Defender posts of August 31, 2006, January 28, 2008, September 18, 2008, November 10, 2008, November 20, 2008, January 12, 2009,  August 17, 2009, October 30, 2010, January 22, 2011, and April 17, 2017 entitled, respectively, "An Animal Control Officer Goes on a Drunken Binge and Leaves Four Cats and One Dog to Die of Thirst, Hunger, and the Heat at a Massachusetts Shelter," "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, a Trio of Miscreants Taunted Tatiana Prior to the Attacks That Led to Her Being Killed by the San Francisco Police," "A Drunken Brute Beats, Stabs, and Then Hurls Fifi to Her Death Against the Side of a House in Limerick," "A London Teenager, Convicted of Killing the HMS Belfast's Kilo, Also Is Unmasked as a Remorseless Liar and a Drunkard," "A Trusting Domestic Cat Has Her Left Ear Blown Off with a Firecracker by Cretins Outside an Irish Bar," "Disoriented and Racked by Excruciating Pain, Seizures, and Infections, Sparkles Loses Her Long Struggle to Live," "America's Insane Love Affair with Criminals Continues as a Drunkard Who Sliced Open Scatt with a Box Cutter Gets Off with Time on the Water Wagon," "A Teenage Wino Who Gunned Down Her Neighbor's Cat, Trouble, with a Crossbow from Her Bedroom Window Cheats Justice," "A Drunken Bum Is Foiled in a Macabre Plot to Make a Meal Out of Kittens, Nirvana and Karma, That He Allegedly Had Run Down Earlier with His Truck," "Colin Sherlock, an Admitted Boozer and Dope Addict, Pulls Out All the Stops in His Unsuccessful Attempt to Torture Roxy to Death," and "As Peat Tragically Found Out, Alcohol and Cats Are Such a Bad Mix That Even Working at a Distillery Can Be Deadly," plus, United Press International, June 28, 2017, "Venkman the Rat-Catching Cat Missing from Chicago Brewery.") 

"I only wish all the drunkards could be put in a lunatic asylum instead of being allowed to run foul of sober people," Anna Sewell astutely pointed out in her 1877 classic, Black Beauty. "If they would break their own bones, and smash their own carts, and lame their own horses, that would be their own affair, and we might let them alone, but it seems to me that the innocent always suffer...If there's one devil that I should like to see in the bottomless pit more than another, it's the devil drink."

Fifthly, Mama Kitty should be allowed to stay indoors at one of the shops at least nights and throughout Jackson's long, cold, and snowy winters where the thermometer stays well below the freezing mark from November until April. Summers are not all that much more conducive to cats living outdoors considering the huge amount of rain that falls between April and mid-October.

At the very least, the shopkeepers ought to be willing to install a cat flap at one of their establishments so as to allow her to come and go as she pleases. Along with doing that they also could set out food, water, and a litterbox for her inside.

Sixthly, whereas the stingy merchants are not about to pony up for Mama Kitty's veterinary care, that most assuredly does not excuse them for completely ignoring her health and well-being. In addition to cutting out the table scraps and feeding her quality canned meats, they need to be brushing her fur every day in order to not only remove loose hairs so as thus to prevent them from being ingested when she grooms herself but much more importantly to remove ticks and fleas as well.

Whereas chemicals should be avoided under all circumstances, various all-natural retardants could be applied to her coat if needed. It also is important that someone wipe off her paws whenever either the shopkeepers or the local road maintenance department puts down chemicals in order to melt snow and ice.

Scrapes, bruises, and scratches need to be cleansed with antiseptics and treated with over-the-counter antibiotics. Also in that regard, an Elizabethan collar is a handy device to have around so as to prevent a cat from scratching at injuries to its neck, face, head, and shoulder areas.

An application of Vicks VapoRub to the outside of a cat's throat, chest, and whiskers can sometimes clear up minor respiratory infections but the best way to avoid such problems is to keep a cat out of the cold as much as is possible. Mama Kitty also probably needs to be vaccinated against rabies, the Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV), and the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) but those inoculations usually require a visit to a veterinarian and the vast majority of them not only hate cats and their owners with a passion but they additionally are incompetent and Shylocks of the worst sort.  

Her caretakers also need to be closely monitoring not only what she eats but also how much. A sudden loss of appetite could signal that something is either sorely amiss with her health or be a harbinger of a dental emergency.

The greatest threat that Mama Kitty is facing, however, is that the shopkeepers will not only be too cheap, uncaring, and lazy to treat her once that she becomes either ill or badly injured but that they will elect to save both money and trouble by having her killed off. They have already trapped her once and robbed her of her ovaries and the next time around they likely will rob her of her precious life.

Owners, fosterers, TNR practitioners, and so-called do-gooders betray their cats and commit such diabolical crimes all the time. (See Cat Defender posts of December 11, 2021, October 23, 2011, and September 28, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Socks, Coors Field's Most Famous Resident Feline, Is Saved from the Gallows by a Pathology Report after She Is Trapped, Misdiagnosed, and Then Unjustly Consigned to Death Row," "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care," and "Marvin Is Betrayed, Abducted, and Murdered by a Journalist and a Shelter Who Preposterously Maintain That They Were Doing Him a Favor," plus KXAN-TV of Austin, May 4, 2022, "Domino, Cat That Roamed University of Texas Campus for Over a Decade, Passes Away.")

By their words and deeds, Moore and Applegate have more than amply demonstrated that they are primarily concerned with themselves and their businesses and therefore care precious little about Mama Kitty's welfare and happiness. In doing so they have shown once again that man is all about exploiting cats and, worst still, feeling good about doing so to boot.

 

C'est-à-dire, man knows how to take but he is yet to learn the first thing about giving. In that regard, there is not all that much of a difference between abusing and exploiting cats on the one hand and devaluing and ignoring their pressing needs and suffering on the other hand.

Both endeavors are forms of cruelty. "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it," Mark Twain wrote in his 1896 essay, "The Lowest Animal." "It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals...Man is the cruel animal He is alone in that distinction."

Part of the blame for the shameful neglect that cats such as Mama Kitty are forced to endure rests with the capitalistic media. For instance, The Citizen Patriot fails to mention even one of the many deprivations that Mama Kitty is being forced to endure at the hands of the hard-hearted merchants.

Instead of acting as beacons of truth, justice, and fairness, the media serve as the propagandists for the capitalists, the militarists, and the politicians who stooge for them. In other words, instead of informing and  educating the public, the media cover up the crimes of those who put money in their pockets by purchasing their products and advertising in them. They accordingly seldom do anything that is even remotely beneficial for cats.

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers," Thomas Jefferson opined more than two-hundred years ago and the media's performance has only worsened since then.

In conclusion, it is indisputable that Mama Kitty has suffered enough and that she is richly deserving of a better life, especially now that she is rapidly growing older. Regrettably, with the shopkeepers so unwilling to provide her with that, things likely will, sooner than later, end badly for her.

Photos:  The Citizen Patriot (Mama Kitty) and Google Street View (Kibby Cobb Plaza on Kibby Road).