I'm in zombie mode now that I haven't gotten any sleep in two days. One night of worrying about the stray kitten I saw as I walked home from work... one night running back to the office every hour to check on the cat trap... and there's only so long that a person can go on like this.

I've had to accept that the kitten is most likely gone because I haven't seen him since before 2:00am and it's now 1am the following day.

He got trapped twice but, because of the known defect in the trap I bought that I was unaware of, he escaped. Then, undoubtedly terrified of the cage that got him, he moved on.

So now I have a camera of the (repaired) trap on my Google Hub and I only set my alarm every three hours to have a look...

I know that kittens get abandoned every day. I know that this cruel world lets stray cats die of neglect all the time. I know this. And yet here was one kitten I could have saved... but ultimately couldn't. And I don't know how to feel about it so I'm feeling everything.

• I'm heartbroken that I was so close to saving the little guy but ultimately couldn't.
• I am angry at HavaHart for looking the other way when there's a known defect in their animal traps for over five years that's responsible for all this.
• I'm disgusted in myself for not figuring out sooner that the trap I bought was defective and not working properly.
• I'm sick with worry over not knowing where the kitten is or how he's getting along... or if he's dead.
• I'm disappointed that the local Humane Society never bothered to return my call about borrowing one of their traps so I wouldn't have had to buy this defective one.
• I'm grateful that my two cats managed to avoid this fate.

I'll keep the trap up for a while yet... even though it's undoubtedly futile at this point. Eventually I'll return it to Home Depot for being a defective piece of shit and contact their coporate headquarters to ask that they stop selling this model trap so that others won't go through what I've had to go through. Probably not going to do anything since corporate schenanigans between companies are always going to take precidence over people, but it's worth a shot.

Now back to sleep again until my alarm chimes in another three hours.