All the lonely felines, where do they all come from

A long unfulfilled promise came to fruition yesterday, as a friend and I went to the cat welfare place down the street to scout for someone suited for climbing my bookshelves and scratching my furniture.
And wow, there were no shortage of choices; I estimated around 100 cats, and we never approached the kitten room (yeah, the bug eyes are cute, but I'd rather have something a little older).
Much like the house of anyone with a cat, the pecking order of the welfare place quickly became evident. They were everywhere, in every color and breed. Cuddly, ill or ill-tempered, it was a buyer's market.
The strode across the tops of cages, sat the windows, fought over who got the right to crawl into a paper grocery bag on the floor.
The one that made the biggest impression first caught my glance as it nimbly navigated the top of the wire cages and stopped long enough for me to scratch her tortoise shell head. I noticed her right eye, mottled from an old injury and almost in the same pattern as her fur. I also saw a limp
When she dismounted, the reason behind the limp became obvious: Her right leg was gone, amputated when she arrived at cat welfare and the staff could not save the damaged limb.
As she walked slowly, her injury was glaring. Get her running, and she was as swift as any other cat.
But I don't know if the injured tortoise shell is for me. As it ages, that cat will have health problems with its feet; redistributing its weight across 3 limbs probably puts excess pressure on them.

In my hour, she wasn't the only attention-getter.

There were far too many hoarse meows from cats that wanted attention, but were too far down the road of their illnesses. This one little black one, scrawny from malnutrition or disease, kept crying at me long after I left his cage - I had a hard time turning away from his dry croak.

The biggest talker of the bunch was the biggest cat they had. Period. It might have been the largest cat I ever saw. You couldn't stand anywhere in that room and avoid his hearty meow. There were many more in cages like him that immediately rubbed the bars with their torsos anytime a visitor came close. A little scratch, even through the grating, was a small reward.

Don't mark it as my last trip to cat welfare. This one was merely exploratory. I'll be back once I narrow my list from the cool dozen I could have adopted then and there, or other adopters narrow it for me.