How do you put the genie back in the bottle?
The simple answer is, you can't.
I didn't want cats while we were here in the US. And yet, we have three of them.
We made the decision not to take our current cat with us from Australia, because of the length of the journey, and the fact that we were planning on being away a lot travelling, and because of the length of time she'd have to stay in quarantine when we returned to Australia.
Then along came Stumpy, a cat we were supposed to be temporarily fostering, because she was hit by a car, had a broken pelvis and lost her tail. She was all sweet while she was convalescing, and Sarah really wanted to adopt her, so I caved in.
Stumpy was probably less than a year old, so still at the boisterous kitten age, and sure enough, she recovered, and became a boisterous kitten again. To the point where she was so energetic, she needed a little friend to wear her out, and I was asked if we could get a second cat, and since I seem to have problems saying no to anything (but heck, I was getting attacked in bed by her in the middle of the night as well), along came Lily (wow, Sarah really needs to spot breaking all the image links in her blog posts).
Sarah was taking Lily back to the shelter we adopted her from, for her shots, and was asked if she'd foster a tiny 4 week old kitten, that was going to have to be euthanized if a foster home wasn't found for her. We still have Smudge today, months later, technically still as a foster, but we intend to adopt her as well, because she's such a sweet little kitten, and of the three, she's the most affectionate towards me. Call this one "my" cat.
Then I look at the destruction these cats have caused. I look at the damage to the really nice dining suite we bought shortly before moving over here. The leather chairs are scratched terribly. The nice wooden table top has scratches in it as well, because they liked to use it as a playground. I was setting the table tonight because we've got people coming round for dinner (it's been a while), and I saw first hand the extent of the damage. I was so pissed off I could have cried.
After our last trip away, the cats got sufficiently bored that Stumpy thought chewing on laptop power adapter cables would be fun. My laptop no longer charges. (I'd just had said power adapter replaced under warranty not two weeks previously).
Don't get me wrong, I love cats, I just so didn't want them right now, and especially right now, I'm wishing I'd stuck to my guns on that one. I think I'd have rather brought LC over from Australia, and not have her become obese by the new owner we found for her, than have so much of our stuff be destroyed by three kittens in a small townhouse that we're away from too often to give them the attention they need as kittens.
Sigh.