Homeless Cats

Homeless Cats 3
Originally uploaded by Tommy Perkins.

The owner of a parked motor scooter had about a dozen homeless cats dozing all over his bike, with a sign attached that solicited passers-by to provide homes for the felines. There were some really gorgeous Siamese among the cats and I stopped to snap a few shots, before politely nodding to the bike owner and walking off.
I have a really tortured appreciation for cats, in that I find them to be quite beautiful, affectionate and intelligent animals. But my allergies and my pit bull rule out any room in my life for these creatures.
Regardless, within less than a minute, another man nearby chased me down and demanded that I delete the photos.
Taking a page from Charlie's book, I feigned ignorance via an maddeningly halting Russian accent. One of the things I've learned traveling is that Americans unwittingly walk around with neon signs above their heads that exhort locals to take advantage of them and their gobs of cash. Given such realities, I find it is always best to pretend to be of some other nationality whose language I am confident no local would have bothered to learn. Sometimes it’s French, sometimes some Slavic-Russian combo, sometimes it’s my native Georgia Redneck.
This time, I sputtered Russian-sounding gibberish at my accoster and pretended not to know how to operate the camera (“I … ugh …. I heef buy theesz … agh … to-deee, yeesz?”). Finally, the poor bastard realized that this was a competition to see who could waste the most of the other’s time and that I was bound to win this war of attrition.