A Pirate In The World O' Cats

All right then, here we have a gigantic social networking site called Facebook that appears to have as members virtually anyone from anywhere - with the possible addition of a few of the Aliens Among Us, who have been observing us as strenuously uninterferingly as The Picard did in that episode in which he was unmasked and worshipped as a god.

You see? one cannot go for a paragraph without mentioning Star Trek or Facebook. Not these days.

Facebook is like an enormous, ever-expanding accordion of information that serves coincidentally as a platform for anything that is permitted. Not a day passes when one doesn't hear of some company's new Facebook page. And you thought it was a dating score site for college students!

What is of great interest is that numerous cat pages have sprung up - Friends of McAbernethy, RIP Fluffy, Puss in the CATskills and so forth. These are very useful in uniting the cat loving community, and are more than efficient in getting out the word when an animal - tho here we speak only of cats - does something startling, like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in catspeak, stands on its whiskers, or plays the trombone for Obama.

On a more serious level, it is a platform via which it is possible to move people to rescue cats. This frequently works, although it does not yet keep pace with the deluge of cats and kittens that end up in kill shelters and are euthanized. In fact, Facebook is a venue that can facilitate the adoption, by someone in Michigan, of an animal in Florida or beyond.




Then there are pages and pages of helpful members who try to go that extra step,to a site such as chipin.com, where opening an account into which donations can be made is done fast and simply.

It was one such page that caught a lot of attention. A sweet little pink-nosed cat named Willow, with deformed hind legs, had been adopted by an acquaintance named Wendy. Lo and behold, one day a person with the screen name "Parkour Kitty" was found to be selling magnets with Willow's likeness. Never mind that Wendy's copyright was trampled on. When confronted Gina, the woman behind "Parkour Kitty" offered to split the proceeds.

Other cat pages commented, bought magnets, discovered other cats that needed help. And there was Parkour Kitty, in the forefront, this time opening a chipin account for an Australian acquaintance's cat named Chop Chop...



And a few days later there was yet another Parkour Kitty chipin, this one for a cat that truly did steal a lot of hearts, Marta, a sweet, bewildered cat of ancient lineage caught up in the turmoil that rocked Egypt. Marta was put up by the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals. But it was Parkour Kitty, that boundless bundle of empathy and love.

Meanwhile the magnets sold, the money rolled in, but not to Wendy, who was beginning to wonder.

And Parkour Kitty found yet another cat in desperate need, this one "belonging to a octogenarian" named Mrs Rebecca. It was a tale guaranteed to tear one's heart to bits: the impoverished Mrs Rebecca owned a pregnant Persian cat named Annabella, who had been hit by an auto, as a result of which she had two broken hind legs, a
dislocated hip, internal bleeding, and the need for bottomless pits of money.



And people donated.

That's the thing about people who love animals - they are sometimes too generous with their love or their money. Having heard many a story of animal abuse, they are too ready to believe horrors without actual proof.

Amid this Niagara of cash Parkour Kitty continued to post updates - the vet didn't know if he could fix her, more money was needed, the kittens were saved, more money was needed, the cat was sort of coming along, more money was needed . . . and, no, Annabella did not want to be seen by anyone in her current condition.




Now, if that last bit did not ring alarm bells, consider that many Facebook members become so enmeshed in catspeak that whole pages require translations, cats' internal monologues are quoted at length, and it sounds humanitarian that one not show a mangled cat, wrapped in dressings, with IV drips -

Reality check: The darling of New York, a rescued three-legged cat named Piper, and Bernice, a cat severely burned by a sociopathic moron in Oshkosh, have done exactly that. Constant updates and in Piper's case a copy of the $5,000 vet bill were posted.



Not so Annabella's information. She must be one vain cat, eh? Mrs. Rebecca's power was turned off by the heartless electric company;





and she had nothing to eat for the next two weeks.






Oh, and amid all these updates, Parkour Kitty's mommy couldn't meet a car payment and the bank was going to take away the car unless the kind wallets on Facebook coughed up another two thousand dollars.

And then, the crisis, followed equally swiftly by its denouement.

Parkour Kitty was unmasked as a recently married graphic designer living in Johnson City, Tennessee, the Australian cat received nothing, Willow received nothing tho Parkour Kitty brazenly suggested that the cheque had been returned by the Post Office, and -

Annabella was not real. Duh!


The internet is a place of scams and follies. Not a day goes by when some other scam artist does not create another sob story, another heart-rending account of some helpless creature in need.

And every time people discover that they have been scammed, the real needy ones - be they kat, kit or kaboodle - are regarded with suspicion or ignored.

Bottom line: trust no-one. Ask questions. and if you are scammed, report, report, report. Perhaps you were swindled out of only a few dollars, but you do not know the extent of the fraud.

The Internet Crime Complaint Centre:

The USPS.

The Canadian Post Office or if you live elsewhere, your postal service headquarters.

Your state/province's Office of the Attorney-General

The scammer's city's police force.

Last, but not least, your credit card company or - if you used it - Paypal.