Why not creature with more profitable output, we often ask ourselves

We ask ourselves, my wife and I, about how we ever got so heavily invested in this damncat business in the first place. Before Katrina there were a few — mostly neutered strays left behind when a lady two doors down moved off without them. The 2005 hurricane scattered some, and we began recovery with a minimum — Cookout Kitty, Splotchy, Scratchy, Stella from Pope, Oreo.
But strays multiplied in post-Katrina New Orleans including two (already neutered) abandoned next door and one (un-spayed) who attached herself to the small colony. We didn’t move fast enough to have her spayed, and it was off to the race that we’ve been trying to catch up with ever since.
Damncats multiply rapidly if unattended. No sooner than we’d catch one, get it spayed or neutered, than another would drop a litter, and so on. Now, 11 years later there remains at least one un-spayed female who comes and goes like a phantom, avoiding our trap, and another (neuter-ality unknown) who has attached herself as well.
It was more manageable before the arrival of new neighbors on both sides, up-scaled to match the fine houses those on either side of us were remodeled/rebuilt to become. My wife (who has forbade further mention of herself or her damncats in these lines, so if you see her don’t mention this) has adapted herself to extraordinary measures to lessen the impact of our damncats.
Arising in pre-dawn darkness, she scans adjoining front yards with a flashlight, ready to remove any evidence of the creatures’ passing through. Her patrol continues until daylight arrives to make search easier. She stands there water hose in hand. A stream of water is the one of the few means of making a damncat do what you want — mainly move. Once the neighbors get up and going in and out, the damncats retreat.
We ordered a cat repellent product that is supposed to keep them away from wherever it’s spread. On opening the package we quickly discovered — even through a sealed, double-layer of packaging — that the main ingredient is pepper.
At night, after houselights and the playground lights across the street go off, my wife has clandestinely crept into neighbors’ yards, spreading the stuff in areas of high feline traffic. We’re still not sure if it works but she thinks it might, her sneezing fits notwithstanding.
These extraordinary measures have removed some of the evidence of damncat overpopulation and neighborhood relations have improved. Rosemary’s rigor has brought an uneasy truce.
Meanwhile, we also often ask ourselves, if we were going to become so heavily invested in the husbandry of creatures, why did we not choose one with more profitable output?
And that’s a damncat report from Uptown New Orleans, where the ratio of neighbors to hoods has changed drastically and from where the yet-surviving Oreo, along with the General, Oscar, Ricky, Sister, Big Brother, Little Brother, Skunky, Stripy, Big Head, Puffy, Grady, Tommy, ad nauseam send their greetings.