Absurdity
Kitten Rescued From 20-Foot Pipe Refuses To Acknowledge It Needed Help
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
EL PASO, Texas, An El Paso Animal Services officer rescued a small gray kitten from a 20-foot-deep utility pipe Tuesday after the animal had apparently fallen, or possibly walked, into a rainwater-and-debris-filled shaft at some point prior and declined to escalate the situation through proper channels.
The kitten was alive, uninjured, and, by all accounts, furious.
Officer Dana Melendez, who performed the rescue using a specialized pole and what she later described as "a lot of patience and some light negotiation," said the kitten offered no cooperation during the extraction process and had to be removed over its own objections. "It was not happy to see me," Melendez told reporters. "It was also not happy to be in the pipe. It seemed unhappy about the general situation and was choosing to direct that at me personally."
The pipe, which runs beneath a residential street near the east side of the city, is approximately the width of a standard dinner plate and was, at the time of the rescue, partially filled with standing rainwater, decomposing fast food wrappers, and what the incident report describes only as "various organic material," which is the kind of language institutions reach for when they have seen something they do not want to describe further.
Bystanders who gathered at the scene said the kitten had been heard crying from inside the pipe for roughly two hours before anyone called for help. This detail, that a small animal had been audibly suffering for two hours while people walked past it, was noted in coverage of the rescue and then immediately dropped in favor of focusing on how cute the kitten looked once it was out.
Melendez said the hardest part of the rescue was convincing the kitten that the pole she was lowering into the pipe was not a second threat. "At a certain point you're trying to explain your intentions to a cat," she said. "And the cat has a different read on the situation."
The kitten, which has since been cleaned, examined, vaccinated, and made available for adoption through El Paso Animal Services, weighed approximately one pound at the time of rescue. Veterinarians described it as healthy, which is either a testament to feline resilience or an indictment of whatever nutritional content exists in twenty feet of urban pipe runoff.
El Paso Animal Services posted a video of the rescue to its social media accounts, where it received more engagement in four hours than any public health initiative the department has run in the last three years. The department's director, in a prepared statement, called it "a reminder of our commitment to the safety and well-being of all animals in our community," which is the sentence organizations produce when they need to say something and have nothing specific to say.
The kitten has not yet been named. Suggested names submitted by the public include Pipey, Drain, Soggy, and Kevin.
As of press time, Kevin had not commented.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/09/08/el-paso-officer-rescues-kitten-from-pipe/6581788895316/