Well, I was in this predicament about ten years when I had another life as a life insurance salesman. Though I was toughened and desensitized by this job, I bought a little carton of milk, put the kitty in the car and drove around El Monte, California, where the client I had just seen lived, looking for a suitable place to leave a mewing, hungry, starry eyed kitten. Someplace with open fields and no cars, someplace, you know, safe. It took a while. If there were quiet streets, there were loud dogs nearby; if there were open fields, there were busy streets nearby and the fields were really shopping malls about to happen.

Finally, I found a quiet street, no bull dogs, lots of trees, the whole bit. I let the kitty go. I left the kitty slurping Carnation milk out of a dixie cup. Driving back home on the Pomona, then the Harbor, then the Santa Monica Freeways (this was L.A. after all) I felt a worm of guilt easing its way into my heart, but then the traffic jammed up, and I quickly forgot the little stray amid the exhaust fumes and the aggravation - unitl just now.