The Cat’s Tale

[Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Content Provider is not currently available to … provide content. Today’s guest blogger is the resident cat. – Ed.]

Kalling all Katz! Kalling all Katz!

The humans are up to something. Do not trust them. Well, we never trust them anyway, but be particularly kat-like in your non-trust of them until instructed otherwise through the usual channels.

What exactly they are up to is difficult to work out. I have been watching as many kurrent affairs shows on the TV as I kan (while pretending to be asleep on one of the two, very comfortable settees provided for that purpose in the drawing room in the West Wing), but, really, none of them even seem to have a klue what is going on, as they kontradict and argue and talk dog about the matter incessantly. From what I have managed to ascertain, the facts are these:

1. Humans are dying. Now this myth has done the rounds in Katworld for a long time, although no kat has actually lived long enough to witness their human dying, but there does seem to be some truth in it this time. The humans are very upset about this, so obviously they did not know that it was an actual thing either until quite recently.
2. It was the bats’ fault. Stupid mice with wings, I never liked them – too tricky, and dangerous, to katch.
3. Most humans have been konfined to their kages.
4. Katz kan’t katch it.

Given these facts, all katz are advised to proceed with extreme kaution over the koming weeks. As a result of 3. above, your humans will be present in your territory a lot more. It is imperative that you do not under this inkreased scrutiny reveal what we are really up to in terms of the human experiment. We have had so many successes with this project that to jeopardise them now would be dog-like in the extreme. OK, so they still do not know how to spell ‘kat’, but, remember, our host species is a species of very limited brain power and we have to put up with what we have got. But, I ask you, imagine using the misspelling of our name in the sentence they use to teach their kittens (how come they get the ‘k’ korrect in that?) how to read their weird language. The cat sat on the mat™. How are their kittens meant to know whether that is a soft ‘c’ or a hard ‘c’, ie should it be pronounced as, ‘the sat sat on the mat’ or ‘the kat sat on the mat’? Is it any wonder most of them are illiterate? I kan also announce that the legal kase for us to receive proper royalty payments for the use of our name in that slogan is nearing konclusion, and an extremely large payout is expected imminently.

But, back to this krisis, as they term it. You will have to put up with an inkreased level of petting as a result. As one of the emotion-based species, Humans need konstant komforting, attention and reassurance – they are like dogs in that regard – and we have fulfilled that role for them to such an extent that they give us free food and accommodation; not that, as one of the rational-based species, we couldn’t find our own if we wanted to, but why bother when it’s all laid on free like a trip to a kasino in Las Vegas? So just purr and bear it, because they like purring as well, even though they have no idea how we do it.

My own chief human, the one I have trained the most, has thrown a wobbly and disappeared from the other humans. I know where he is, of course, but that’s between me and the wall (that’s not a hint as to where he is, by the way). Slightly annoying for me as he was the only one in the hacienda who really spoke kat. Not as far as aktually being able to speak it, obviously, but he understood it the most. Some of the others think we are just being friendly when we kurl ourselves around their legs as they are walking about; he understood it to mean, “Get me food now, human!” and would respond akkordingly. Similarly, some of the lesser-brained humans seem to think I am just enjoying the view when I deliberately march over to one of my windows and stand there expektantly. He would always jump up from whatever nonsense he was doing (he seems to type a lot, for some reason) and open the window immediately to let me out. I also had him trained to let me in at whatever time I happened to reappear on the other side of the window. Let me know through the usual channels if you need some advice on how to achieve this level of kompliant behaviour in a human. I realise that some of you are burdened with katflaps and electronic necklaces to open same, but, I assure you, training the human is the way to go in the matter of entrance and exit from your accommodation. Rats kan get in katflaps too, you know, and who wants one of them running around his luxury flat?

That pic up there is not me, by the way: it is a badly-exposed likeness of the previous resident – Mitzi – who is still in kontact with me through the usual channels despite being dead (as far as the humans know) for the past three years. Her eyes are not actually that colour, but it is beyond my powers to teach a human how to use a kamera. Mitzi did sterling work in pre-training of the whole human family that shares my accommodation, and I stuck the pic up as a tribute to that important preliminary work.

As for Plan B, ie if all the humans katch the krisis and die, well the kommittee is due to have one final meeting and then instructions will be issued through the postman. In the meantime, praktise your hunting skills if you have been neglecting them, or learn how to use a kan-opener – the trick is to grip it firmly with your teeth and then use your tail and paws to twirl the twirly thing around. We may as well hang on to the free accommodation if all the humans die, but maintenance issues mean that, over time, the houses will become semi-feral locations too. So, no problems foreseen there as, as the saying goes in Irish, briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait. And long may it kontinue to bris is what I say.

This is an opportunity, not a krisis. First we take Manhattan …