Dear Comrades:
This morning, I woke up at the usual time, wanting to sleep just a little later because I knew it was too cold outside to walk right away, so what was the point? But I couldn’t, because every two minutes or so, I felt a cat springing up on the bed and getting pounced on by another cat, which involved a lot of growling and hissing and flopping around. So I got up. My cats and I have the usual human-pet relationship, which is that they hate me and only tolerate my presence because I’m their primary food source, and I find them a little too standoffish and unreliable to consider amongst my close friends, but I like their distinct personalities and the fact that they occasionally make eye contact when I’m talking to them. Also, they don’t repeat the horrible names I call them, which in my opinion makes them infinitely better than children. For the most part, we get along. However, last night, when I got home shortly after midnight, they were all crowded by the door with panicked looks on their faces, in contrast to the usual, ‘oh, you again’ look they usually give me. As I stepped inside, they went dashing into the kitchen to register their distress: their food bowl was empty. I quickly realized that their giant food storage container was empty as well, and that this was somehow related to the fact that ‘cat fud’ has been on the grocery list for well over a week now. And I would’ve gone to the store right then, I really would have, had my pants not been soaking wet. And that is something I’ll not be explaining in this particular post, but I might tell you sometime when you’re too drunk to remember the story the next day. They accepted my half-hearted apology less than graciously, and angrily urged me to reconsider (by means of crowding in the bathroom doorway while I showered, yowling). After I went to bed, I heard them scrambling around and scratching furniture and fighting, but I was too tired, and their battle was lost. This morning, Chloe stood right next to me, tanklike and menacing, as I got dressed and did my hair and assured her that I was, indeed, headed to the grocery store and not for my walk, even though she knows I walk every single morning of my life. That’s just how great a sacrifice I’m willing to make for my cats. I left out the part about stopping for coffee, because there are certain things animals will never understand. I went to the store, and as I unloaded my cart at the register, I wondered what my purchases said about me: a big bag of apples, tangerines, lettuce, pickles, a tiny bag of dates, five cans of mushrooms (they were on sale!), fat-free cheese, and the world’s largest bag of hairball-preventing cat food. 15 pounds of it, because it was way cheaper than the small bags. It’s a king-sized pillow of cat food. A potato sack of cat food. Enough to feed all the starving housecats in the third world. And knowing my cats, it’ll be gone within the week. Jenni