I'm still leaking from my nasolacrimal ducts

[eumelia]

I just got home from an outing with Mummy (she's leaving for the States tonight for a couple of weeks and I took a break from my studying to spend some time with her before she goes) and as we were driving up one of the busy roads, there right in the middle, on the separation line was a kitten, couldn't of been more than a month and a half or two completely frozen.

I told Mummy to stop the car. Stop the Car!!!! And she said she didn't want me to get run over, I said I have to get that cat.
It was so tiny and my heart was just breaking seeing it.
She stopped on the curb and I ran out, thankfully there was only one car coming my way and the driver had also seen the kitten and drove to the curb when it saw me approach.
A human was all it took to get that kitten running back the pavement and under a parking car - I tried picking it up, but it dashed into the bushes.

The driver of the other car asked me: "Is it all right?"
I replied: "Yeah, it's out of danger"
She smiled at me, waved and drove off.

I went back to Mummy and practically burst into tears, she said she would have stabbed herself if she's have run over that kitten.
She said I was a good person for going into the road and getting that cat out of the way.

I have to ask:
Is what I did so extraordinary?
Wouldn't a better person actually pick up that kitten and take it home?
Wouldn't the average Jane/Joe do what they can to NOT kill another living being?
Why is doing something so small like that worthy of a smile from a total stranger?

Comments

[roga.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. Animals on the road is dangerous for them, but it's also dangerous for you. It all depends on where you were driving. But if you'd been in the middle of a busy road and suddenly stopped the car (whether because of kindness and wanting to save the animal, or because it was instinct, which is what ususally happens -- see a dog, slam the brakes), you could have easily caused a car accident. This is why I hate it when people let their dog out without a leash. Sure, it's dangerous for the dogs, but fuck, it's dangerous for me and for the people I'm driving in the car, too. If I see them from far away, honking usually works. (Also, hee, I was just reminded of this ().)

Why is doing something so small like that worthy of a smile from a total stranger?

I don't think that's a right question to ask. You don't have to do something 'worthy' or extraordinary for a stranger to smile at you. Why shouldn't she have smiled?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's a right question to ask. You don't have to do something 'worthy' or extraordinary for a stranger to smile at you. Why shouldn't she have smiled?

I dunno, maybe because I was so emotional it didn't seem right for her to smile at me. No clue.
It's true, it could have easily caused an accident, also if the street (in the city) had been more busy that kitten would have been dead and there would have been no reason (or way) to stop.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the average Jane/Joe do what they can to NOT kill another living being?
Yes, I think they would. We have a lot of wildlife (especially wallabies and echidnas) on the roads here, and people who are normally quite heartless about wild animals that eat their farm animals' fodder brake like crazy and swerve off the road to avoid them whenever they can. But what you did was genuine kindness, with no gain to yourself, and seeing that would bring a smile to anyone's face.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Aren't wallabies large? I know echidna's are about the size of common hedgehogs, right?
I have to say my mother was pretty awesome about the whole thing, I think if I'd brought the cat with me we would have ended up adopting it, which in the long run it's better we didn't, because I have a feeling our cat, Wish whose going to be twelve this year, would have killed it - uber territorial that huge ginger Garfield wanna-be is.

I was so emotional about the kitten, that anyone smiling at me was weird, in retrospect it must have looked sweet to passers by, though totally crazy it being a busy road at any other hour of the day.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Wallabies vary in size from about 30cm tall to about a metre tall, but we have fairly small ones here. We have kangaroos here, too, but not hitting them is just self-protection - they're big animals and will kill you if they hit your windscreen. I don't often drive at dusk, but once I was driving back from a nearby town and slowed down for a kangaroo that was bounding down the road - I was doing 40km/h and it was outpacing me easily!

[hemlock-sholes.livejournal.com]

Uber-territorial?

Are we living in the same house and talking about the same cat?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Just because he runs away and hides when strange people enter the house doesn't mean he isn't as territorial as a tiger.

You've seen him when he gets possessive with shoes... and feet.