Open Letter To My Cat At Dawn

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, commonly known as the SPCA, whose logo you might have seen before I rescued your ass, is about a seven minute cab ride from my place, which I know you think of as “our place,” or perhaps even your place. This is not true. All the documents bound to this place are under my name, and thus my sole legal liability.

Speaking of “legal liability,” did you know that you have a chip on the back of your neck, surgically inserted under your skin? My name is registered on that chip as your legal adopter, which means I cannot just put you in a cardboard box and place you in the projects. There would be negative consequences for me, so don’t consider yourself flattered.

I have opposable thumbs, you don’t. I can open the cat food, you can’t. I know where Petco is, you don’t. I’ve read Ulysses, you haven’t. These are examples of me looking down at you on the evolutionary chart. True, I cannot lick my own asshole and I don’t have claws, nor can I jump seven times my height; but neither can you. Fat ass.

So, when you incessantly meow with increasing aggravation at 5:00 a.m., I wake up and cannot go back to sleep. I know “math” doesn’t exist inside that acorn-sized brain of yours, but this means I get five hours of sleep, not the intended seven, which is already one hour below the suggested amount for well-functioning adults.

When I go to work for eight hours on five hours sleep, the ratio of work to sleep is not favorable. Work is this place I go to everyday, in part to finance your selective taste in only the best cat food. I nod off at my desk. I become irritable, and again, fantasize about putting you in a cardboard box and placing you in the projects (where people without jobs, and who don’t want them, live).

I should also mention that you’re a huge cock block. (A cock is that thing you see dangling around when I pee; when it’s larger, please leave the room.) It turns out there are a lot of women who are allergic to cats. Their eyes tear; their noses run; their throats close up. I can’t get into the mechanics of profane love making, but this is not good. Such women feel ostracized and uninvited, that I have chosen you over them. Damn you.

I know you’re hungry, but you’re also fat. This means I could go to Barcelona for a week, or two, and you would not die. You could live off all that fat of yours. Fat is basically all the extra food you ate and didn’t burn off, because you had taken over the fucking couch again and not let me sit on it, even though I pay the bills. How do you sleep at night? Oh, yeah, you don’t. You sleep during the day.

At night you fuck with me, climbing on my face every two hours. In the future, when you’re hungry, can you please just eat from the bowl of dry food which I always keep full? I only buy the “no grain” expensive kind. Then, around 7:30 a.m. or so, at my natural waking time, I’ll happily open a can of wet cat food for you. It’s just two and a half hours, but it would mean a lot to me. Now, do you want salmon, tilapia, or lamb, since I’m already up.