Much hullabaloo has been made of the cat bin lady. If the kerfuffle has not made its way to wherever you’re reading this blog post from, let me summarise the turn of events for you:
Here in England, Coventry to be precise, a woman was captured on CCTV, first petting a friendly neighborhood cat that had approached her and then suddenly and swiftly decided that it would be ‘funny’ to open up a nearby trash bin and chuck it in. The woman then merrily walks on. Luckily, the cat was discovered by its owners 15 hours later when, having grown worried about its whereabouts, they investigated the CCTV footage from near their house.
Here, in all its glory, is the little bit of animal abuse heard round the world:
It’s strange to watch this clip because the first thing that comes to mind, besides a bit of fretting for the cat, is that the woman must be a little ‘off’. All turned out to be OK in the end. The cat was happily rescued from the garbage can. But, because the owners had put the footage up on-line, the cat-chucker had become instantly notorious. Her identity was easy to discern through the footage (Mary Bale is her name) and the RSPCA is deciding whether or not to pursue any legal action.
Bale, who I think we can all agree has poor impulse control, used the excuse that she thought it would be funny. I don’t think she ever considered for a moment that she’d have an audience of millions.
Quotes from The Daily Mail (sorry for the tabloid-rag of a source):
‘I cannot explain why I did this, it is completely out of character and I certainly did not intend to cause any distress to Lola or her owners.
‘It was a split second of misjudgment that has got completely out of control.
But she claimed the outcry had been blown out of all proportion: ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about. It’s just a cat.’
Miss Bale said she was just walking home on Saturday when she saw the cat and decided to play with it. But she told the Sun that she ‘suddenly thought it would be funny’ to put it in the bin.
‘I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny. I never thought it would be trapped, I expected it to wriggle out,’ she said.
What sucks for this lady though, is that what she thought was a bit of mischief has resulted in death treats and world-wide disdain. (Though she’s not ingratiating herself to cat lovers anywhere by saying she doesn’t understand the fuss, anyone with half a brain should realize that she’s perhaps not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.) Those who wish to do her harm should note, violence against people technically qualifies as animal abuse as well…
Inevitably, an ‘I hate Mary Bale’ Facebook has already sprung up and is ‘liked’ by over nine thousand users. Of course, it only took minutes for some genius to call her ‘worse than Hitler’. Ugh…sometimes I hate the Internet soooo much.
The Internet’s worse than Hitler.
(See Godwin’s Law: Godwin\’s Law)
Meanwhile, Lola’s owners, kind and reasonable, have implored people to refrain from going all angry villagers with pitchforks on her ass. Thank God, some people have sense.
Naturally, as with any internet meme, this event has been parodied to the hilt. But, the person who I think has nailed it the best it whoever is the genius behind this twitter account, which finally brings us to our great thing of the day:
145. CatBinLady’s Twitter Account
This twitter page is the perfect satire of the events. It reads the situation perfectly without calling for the murder of a woman who acted like a bit of a plantpot.
I have no idea who is behind it. Truly an unsung hero. The bio just reads:
- Bio I have momentary aberrations. We all do.
Also, CatBinLady is following Kanye West on Twitter. Makes a sort of sense, unlike the woman herself.
Read the entries and enjoy for yourself how CatBinLady’s impulses repeatedly get her into trouble. Do yourself a favor and start from her first tweet: CatBinLady
***Update***The Author of CatBinLady comes forward! Enjoy more comedy writing from him if you will!
Kate McCabe Warehouse 
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