I have been living in Pattaya since 2002. When I was working for a marketing agency in 2008, my boss' wife found a kitten in the front basket of my scooter, that I had parked in front of the office. The kitten was so tiny and undernourished I thought it wouldn't make it in this hard environment for strays, and if honest I was only half half-heartedly interested in its fate since that time I just had a distant relationship to animals.
I was working in an office on the second floor and lived on the third floor. After about a week or so the kitten was still alive and every time I went down to the main office I noticed it and started to show interest how it fared. I realized that the pitch-black kitten was a tom. The cat became more and more adventurous and when I noticed that my boss' wife and her little daughter lost interest in it I took more and more care of the little thing, feeding it and took it upstairs in my apartment. 'Meow' as I called him was more and more happier to stay with me than downstairs with the Thai folks. I have to explain that 'meow', is the Thai word for 'cat' and actually also a common nick name for Thai girls. But I gave Meow his name before I knew that he was a male.
As the time went by I got really attached to Meow, and when he was 6 weeks old I took him to a piece of grassland in front of the house where he liked to roam around on his own and after a few weeks had passed, his confidence grew and he fancied a walk over the roofs of neighboring houses.
One day, when I came back from shopping I heard him meowing pitifully. I saw him sitting on a bay window from which he could not get down. I climbed up the wall, took him in my arms and climbed down again. Two meters above ground he moved vigorously and wanted to jump down. I was scared he would hurt himself since the ground beneath us was concrete. So I decided to jump with him still in my arms.
I did a lot of sports in my life and also a lot of jumping, so I thought just two meters wouldn't be a problem to land safely which I did. Meow jumped out of my arms and ran away. When I tried to erect myself, breath taking pain radiated from my feet. I couldn't walk anymore and had to crawl into the house and up the stairs. Next morning my both feet were of bluish color and I couldn't walk nor stand.
It took me two weeks before I could slowly shuffle around again and I went to see a doctor. He told me that a couple of ligaments were torn and it would take quite a while to walk normal again. That time I didn't know that it would take me about half a year to walk and stand again without pain.
My boss was not happy about my reduced availability and with hindsight I know now that this incident was the beginning of the end of my employment with that company.