Friday, February 20, 2015

I'm thrilled to have my story "Hello Kitty" published on Yahoo Voices, the yahoo contributors network. Read it here:



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Hello Kitty?… It’s your sister. Look, I’m next door hunting mice; pick up if you’re there. The neighbors left their window open again. Kitty? Hmmm... I’ll take human communication for one thousand, Alex. Da da da da da da da…Oh well, I guess you must be outside. Look, Kitty, we need to talk while the humans are gone. And hopefully I don’t need to remind you to erase this before they get home. Seeing as they still don’t know we can talk?...I’d like to keep it that way. So my point here, Kitty, is that if they suspected Siamese cats could talk, well, next thing you know, they’ll try negotiating. ‘How about if I go back to sleep for an hour, then get up and feed you?’ I can hear it now. You see, humans totally get ‘talk to the paw’. But the minute we tried to use words? Mark my word, that’s when the insubordination would begin. Crack the littlest peep of a ‘good morning,’ and it’s only a matter of time before they’d start to argue. ‘Morning?’ they’ll say. ‘Don’t you know what time it is? Leave me alone. Go feed yourself.’ Mind you they say that now, but only because they’ve deluded themselves into thinking we don’t actually understand them. As if! Can you just imagine if we were the ones who evolved opposable thumbs? Cat oh cat, that would change things around, it would. Imagine...cat food cans, bird cage handles, bolt action Smith and Wessons...the whole world literally at the tips of our paws!

Seriously though, humans have no concept of how hard we work to train them. Now that said, the woman is at least well-schooled in proper etiquette. I was asleep on the couch yesterday, and she respectfully sat on the opposite chair and played with her yarn and sticks, watching that stupid ‘miniature world’ box from across the room. And that reminds me. You know the box with the light in front of it, the one with the comfy spot to lie on? What do they call it? A keyboard, I think. You’d think it was another cat, the attention they’re always giving it, massaging it with their fingertips day in and day out. They sit in front of that thing and stare right at it as if it were a god!

Now the man, on the other paw, is a different matter. He actually picked me up...can you believe it? Picked me up from a sound sleep and proceeded to throw me on the floor! Then he woke up the box and watched it while people the size of mice ran up and down wrestling each other in a green field! And then, just as I’d get myself settled, he’d jump to his feet and scream to wake the dead! I had to leave the room, Kitty. I just can’t stomach such ill manners.

So the problem is, if we tried to talk to them like calm, civil cats, they would get all political on us. They’d be asking for a vote in what brand of cat food to buy and when to clean the litter box. As if life with a cat is a democracy. Oh please! Humans and their politics! If they can’t be trained to agree with each other, how can we expect them to learn to agree with us? No; proper human training demands action. A few piles in the corner and our litter gets changed. A few morning chest compressions and we get fed on time.

But anyway, the real reason I called is to give you a heads up. I saw the female writing a note about a vet appointment tomorrow. We may want to go missing for a few hours. And remind me to do some more investigation. I need to find out what ‘spay’ means. Gotta go, Kitty. The mouse is coming. I’ll be home in a while.”

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