For South Africans whose hearts did not pump chocolates and red roses on February 14, the SPCA in Virginia in the Free State came up with a novel way to deal with the Valentine's Day blues.
The organisation ran an initiative where you could have a stray cat named after an ex and they then neutered “your ex” for a mere R250.
Thea Smit, an inspector at Virginia SPCA, told TimesLIVE Premium they have been enjoying the interaction with disgruntled ex's across the country.
“It has been so much fun. Most people took part in a tongue-in-cheek way.”
The local stray cat population forced them to make a plan.
“There are a lot of stray cats in our area but the cost to neuter them is prohibitive. People can now contact us via our Facebook page and request to have a cat named after an ex-boy or girlfriend. We charge R250 for the naming and neutering of each cat,” Smit said.
“We are always trying to find novel ways of raising funds for our animal friends. Valentine's seemed to be a good angle and we tried this. The results have been amazing.”
The plan seems to have worked.
“We have already raised R16,000 — that means 64 stray cats were neutered with the help of disgruntled exes.”
But their joke had a more serious tail to its comet.
“Most of the initial messages and requests we received were not what I would call kind. Some even requested the procedure be done without pain meds, but we would never do that. There has also been heartwarming stuff.
“Somehow our project of humour turned into something more serious and some people started using us as a sort of memorial for deceased fathers, mothers, brothers and so on. It is amazing how a joke could turn out to help people feel better,” Smit said.
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