oh well, I sent 'Holly' a box of chocolate candies, heh. I hope she is
enjoying it. Lori, you didn't do anything that could be construed as
perpetraiting a hoax. You were taken in as all of us were.
BTW...I am curious as to how Megan found out this was a hoax?
It it was, I wish I had bought that box of candy for myself, heh.
Jazz & his mama

Repeat after me  "it was all a lie and we all believed it"  20 times. It is
not your fault, in fact if it had been true, you were keeping us all up to
date with what we wanted to know about.  Which was, at the time, Holly's
brain operation, so kudos to you.

You did right, so sleep tight
Tweed

What I don't get is why is this person (who knows if it is really a
"Holly"?) is not just writing a novel and making some money off of it. I
think we all have to agree it's a very affecting story. It is indeed sad
that someone feels the need to do this. I was wondering when you first wrote
about it all, how you found out and just figured you had struck up an
outside email chat about it. At any rate, don't feel bad. We are all in the
same boat. Kind of wish it were true, if just for the fact that it was
pretty uplifting. Ah well, we all know better now. Thanks Megan, though, for
the leg work. I hadn't seen Holly posting before since I don't do alt.cats.
Makes me wonder what she wrote that tipped you off.

Lori,

Yeah, we were all taken in... but your error, if error it was, was one of
excessive kindheartedness.  I can't remember who said it or the precise
wording, but there's a quote about preferring the errors of enthusiasm to
the perfection of indifference.  Better the former than the latter, I'd say.
The most any of us are out is a box of candy, a little money, and a homemade
get well card, here and there. It's not as if Holly induced you into helping
her persuade Yowie to send the Yowlet's college fund to help pay Holly's
non-existent hospital bill, right? Nor has anyone here been bilked of their
life's savings.  As lessons go, this one was not terribly expensive, and it
hasn't produced wide-spread enmity and bitterness among the ranks, here. We
owe you one, Megan. Thanks for your detective work.

As for Holly, I feel she is more to be pitied than scorned, although it was
a Mount Everest of a lie she told us all.  Now that I think about it, you'd
think a woman who had had two brain operations in one WEEK would be feeling
a little less chipper and coherent, at very least.  When I read Howard's
post about the nature of infections and brain surgery, it made so much sense
I felt embarrassed at how easily I, too, was taken in.  Holly did seem nice
and genuinely cat crazy, and her posts were very much in tune with  the
spirit of this newsgroup. We all WANTED to believe she was a brave cancer
patient who had already been through a lot of health troubles.  And for all
we know, her past histories with cancer might be true. Unfortunately, she's
made it that much harder for herself to prove it to us all if she has.

So group hug, minimal harm done, and pass the grains of salt so that we
strike a balance between being supportive to those in true need, while
maintaining a healthy skepticism about taking things on face value. =o)

Melissa