Cat Conversations
I was cleaning up my files and found this one from the early days of Covid. Since I had some time back then, I thought I’d learn Spanish and signed up for an online program. All good until one day I activated the voice recognition feature but forgot to turn it off when I went to bed. The next morning when I got up, I saw a conversation had been transcribed. Apparently, in addition to Spanish and English, this program also knew cat. We had two at the time, Tigger and Oreo. I’ve added their names below to make reading easier. It started off charmingly enough with some talk about the best way to wash one’s face, and then I read the following:
Oreo: What’s going on with our humans?
Tig: I don’t know! Why aren’t they leaving the house every morning? Don’t they know that they’re in the way?
Oreo: I guess not. I’ve been throwing up everywhere to get them to leave, but they’re not taking the hint.
Tig: We’ll have to step up our efforts.
Oreo: Right! I was planning to barf right in front of the bathroom door so the male will step in it first thing in the morning. What about you?
Tig: That’s a good one. How about on that big pile of bills?
Oreo: No good. Last time I tried that, the female just laughed and told me to do it again.
Tig: I know! How about on that quilt she’s making? I bet she won’t laugh then!
Oreo: I don’t know, that’s pretty mean, she’s been working hard on that.
Tig: Times like this call for drastic measures.
I couldn’t believe it! After all I’ve done for them! As I was cleaning the quilt, I debated whether I should try to catch more of their conversations. Even though I knew I’d regret it, curiosity got the better of me, and I left the program open again. I shouldn’t have.
(Note--I may have exaggerated the conditions of my work somewhat in a failed effort to get some appreciation from the two little ingrates).
Tig: They’re still underfoot! Why aren’t they going to that work thing every morning like they used to?
Oreo: Oh yeah. Work. You pay more attention to them than I do. What’s work again?
Tig: Well, the story she gives me is that she is in some kind of terrible servitude to a cruel master who demands that she do something very difficult and unpleasant called “work” for hours and hours almost every day. Apparently, the male human does the same, but he doesn’t complain as much.
Oreo: Huh. Why do you suppose they do that?
Tig: There’s no telling with humans, but she tells me that they go to work every day for OUR benefit if you can believe that!
Oreo: You mean, they go away so we can have the house to ourselves? Well, that’s only right.
Tig: True, but I don’t think that’s it. She says she goes to work so she can earn money to trade for cat food.
Oreo: What? With the food they give us?? I wonder what they really do?
Tig: No idea. But it really burns me up how the male human tells us that our food is so delicious, but you notice he never eats it!
Oreo: Yes, but to be fair, I’ve tried the food she cooks, and it isn’t any better.
Tig: Maybe they can’t get decent cat food because they’re really incompetent at that work stuff.
Oreo: Probably, they’re incompetent at everything else. But what can you expect from a species that doesn’t even have the sense to grow fur?
Well! Of all the rude…I couldn’t believe it. I fixed them both with a steely glare. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to out glare a cat. Oreo yawned and went off to sunbathe and Tigger moved in to have his ears scratched
Me, scratching behind his ears: I really resent all the mean things you two said about us! I can’t believe I’m scratching your ears! I resent this too!
Tig looked at me with wide eyes, and I didn’t need a translator to understand.
“A little more to the left.”
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