It’s Wednesday night at 9:15 p.m. I am in bed, exhausted, and trying to fall asleep. (Don’t judge me for being in bed this early…I’m tired.) My next-door neighbor’s sliding glass door screeches the awful metal-on-metal sound as it opens and he lumbers out. I hear him yell to his wife, she yells back. As they are both mostly deaf, I can’t understand a word they are saying, but they are loud. He opens his creaking gate [right under our bedroom window] and starts up a loud truck. He seems to be backing the truck into his yard, next to our fence [also right under window]. He has turned a floodlight on under the roofline of his tall backyard…garage? It is tall enough to house a motorhome. The light fills our dark bedroom. Then, he starts up a generator. Or a snowblower. SERIOUSLY?! Of course I can’t see a thing with my glasses on the nightstand, so I just stare at the orange light blindly and shake my head.

It’s 4:40 a.m. and I hear the unmistakable sound of a cat screaming. Don’t hate me for saying this, but I wish it was the sound of a cat being eaten by a predator. It wasn’t. Another cat joins it. I am getting very used to this sound. They continue for about 10 minutes. It sets off the horrible chihuahua that lives behind me. He barks until 5:30.

Once the sun is up, I call animal control. They tell me that I can trap the feral cats and they will come pick them up. Out of curiosity I google the cost of buying or renting traps. I would also have to provide water (and presumably food to entice them into the traps) for these animals. I know the shelter will euthanize them, but now that they are reproducing…

I don’t believe, generally, in killing things. I know it has to be done at times, but typically I’d like to stay out of the process. I don’t think it’s my place. However, it is decidedly more cruel to allow the cats to reproduce and create feral kittens. My next-door neighbor feeds the feral cats. That is why they always mate under my window. I don’t think he intends to be cruel, but he is. Feeding them is not in their best interest. They just create more homeless pets. The responsible thing to do, if you enjoy the company of wild cats, is to trap them, bring them in to animal control for spaying, and then return them to “the wild’ and continue feeding them. But he is not. Instead, I have the option of trapping them myself? No.

My solution?

I’m thinking a bee bee gun.