Too Much Self-Importance Drives Me Batty!

So, there's a cat we're interested in adopting from a local shelter...she's cute and sweet and is a survivor - after being hit by a car a few months ago, she only has one eye and three legs.

The shelter is great BUT the person we've ended up speaking with so far is an insufferably arrogant, self-important ass, so it's not going well yet. (Her name is Jamie, so if you're going to be adopting a cat from Tree House, make sure to ask for someone else to help you. Seriously. When we walked in the door the first time, she was busy patronizing a new volunteer and her tone and demeanor didn't change when she started talking to us.)

Here's the problem - C. made mention of declawing whatever cat we adopt, which is anathema to the shelter. Though I did front declaw my cats years and years ago, I no longer agree with declawing. C. and I spent the week talking about it and she's no longer wanting to declaw whatever cat we adopt...she's changed her mind. But convincing Jamie that we've honestly changed our stance and are not just vicious, lying, willy-nilly declawers is proving difficult.

I went in today and spoke with Jamie again. It took a considerable amount of effort on my part not to point out to her all the numerous ways she was being smug and haughty - though I did make a quiet mention of her "interesting body language." I also mentioned to her that the reason C. responded to her in the way that she did during our first interview was due to personality differences. (I wonder if she understood that when I used the words "strong" and "powerful" I really meant "snotty bitch"?)

Jamie also started throwing out other excuses why she didn't think she could authorize us (yes, she used the word "authorize" several times) to adopt this particular cat - reasons that disparaged my remaining cat and our household. She doesn't have a clue about us, other than what we put down on the application and the little bits of information I could get her to listen to in between being criticized and pigeon-holed. Argh! (I now have great sympathy for all people who are going through the process of adopting a child, as I imagine there must be lots of adoption counselors out there like this.)

We've got to go in and talk to Jamie another time to see if she'll let us adopt the cat we like. I'm not certain if she's really looking for out-and-out begging from us or if she's just going to get her jollies by denying us this cat.

I'm not eagerly anticipating this next visit. I'm sure Jamie will continue to be as snotty as ever and when that happens, C. will probably get huffy and that'll be that.