Something's different

For the past few weeks this little kitty has been yowling at all hours in our back yard. It was a pathetic little male cat, balls intact. I don't know if it had an owner, but if so it didn't spend much time with him. He was always around our house. Front yard, back yard. Not a friendly cat, would run away at first sight of a human.

So we trapped him, and even though he was meowing I figured I had better take him to the pound, being unneutered and annoying as all hell. He was also dirty and skinny, so he might just be abandoned.

Now, normally I have significant antipathy for the cats we trap. A plague, I think them, on normal, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth neighborhood cats. Like kitty vagrants.

But this cat, for some reason, I felt really sad about. He was so little and pathetic, yelling for help and sticking his hands out of the cage. As the lady took my cat trap to transfer the little guy into the main kennel, my heart sunk. She came back and said he was smelly like a male cat (whatever???) and I blubbered about how he looked like a sad ittle bitty kittie cat and I hoped he would find a homey womey where people would love him and...

What?