there's a small commune of feral strays in the area, which are mostly fed/maintained by one woman (who, i will grudgingly admit, has tried to get some spayed and neutered)

and, as typical of feral cats, are generally skittish of people

.....so i knew something was up when i pulled to a stop across the street from one little ginger, and they didn't move from their curled up spot

and instead meowed at me

while I was getting out my delivery, they even crossed the street to be nearer to me, curled up near the front of my truck and turned to watch as I put down boxes

and then came to greet me while I was closing up the truck storage doors

EXTREMELY friendly and affectionate!

to the point that I could pick them up in my arms!

.....which i did after my first pet Immediately revealed, like. so much spine sticking up from the skin. this cat was so thin

which isn't the norm for the strays in that area, because, again, they are maintained by the resident cat lady! if nothing else, them little bastards are of respectable weights!

so i hauled them up into my arms and just. walked down a couple houses to go to the cat lady'd place, because i was like

"well i KNOW she got a tray of food out there for them at any given time"

so i was hoping that this lil one could eat something and get meat on them bones

but as i was approaching the Cat Porch (tm), the lady actually came out to greet me - probably because I made all the strays scatter with my approach aldkjfas

and not only HER, but also her NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR showed up in the other house, and they both basically said that skinny cat had showed up out of nowhere a few days ago

so both of them had been trying to feed him, and slip in, like, dewormer and such

but good news was that the neighbor had apparently found a home for the cat, and I handed them off to him

so there's that potential happy ending

...............anyway it was an orange cat, what is it with orange strays being just Immediately Friendly /stares at Taxi Cat

you are orange cat-nip

Aswwwwww

no i think that's just how they are as a species

This is basically how our orange cat wound up with us- got scooped up for being too friendly by someone feeding ferals

Its a thing

it's always the orange cats!!!!!

as i wrote that, taxi literally straightened up - and he is coming to be right in my face, he understands this is about him in some capacity

Hahaha cute

it should be noted that when i was first trying to wrangle taxi so that his leg could get checked out, i also could just pick him up and almost made it back home with him like that

the problem was the loud mouthed dog behind a fence along the way, who couldn't be seen but whose barks freaked taxi out