I thought I would share with you what it looks like to go through one of my days as an author pet.
In the morning, I’m up at 3 am.
The bowl is empty.
My brothers and I have to do a lot of work to remind my author and my cat dad to get up and feed us. First, we race about the house pounding our paws on the hard floors. Sometimes we play a bit, rattling balls with bells inside them, crinkling toys, and thumping into walls. It’s fun to get the kitten to chase me because he still can’t stop his momentum and often slams loudly into walls and doors.
The kitten is a really good tool for waking up the humans.
Then we scratch at the door and try to wriggle the latch free so we can open it. If that doesn’t work and the door remains locked, I try my special cat dad communication call. Usually, when he hears it, he comes running to play for a few seconds or minutes with the toy I have brought. In the mornings, I don’t reward him with play time because the bowls are empty. Most of the time the call doesn’t work.
Cat dad sleeps very heavily.
My brothers then start to fight, crying loudly and banging into the door in a wrestling match. I increase my meowing, but not loud enough to be considered unladylike. At this point, we become desperate as the last hour or two has gone without response.
We take to the kitchen. We used to be able to bang cupboard doors or pull cans of food out ourselves. I used to be able to get into the bread, my favorite human food, or toss treats down to my brothers. Author and cat dad say it isn’t good for me. I’m not sure why. We can’t do that anymore as there are special doors installed that are too heavy, and most of our food is in the fridge. The fridge doesn’t have a handle to pull on, so we can’t get into it either.
Now, we bang any pots, pans, or dishes left on the counter. We knock the salt and pepper shakers off the counter, and we patrol the house for any other loose items or books we can push or pull off shelves. If something breaks, cat dad and author come running so that’s the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, there are very few breakable items anymore.
By this point, starvation has set in. The empty bowl is mocking us. I used to stand on the pedal for the garbage can and raid the garbage. Now all I can do is pull at the corner and shred the garbage bag’s edge because author cat and cat dad have put heavy objects on the lid. I’m not sure why they do this.
Eventually, around 6:00 a.m., someone wakes up and feeds us. We sometimes eat in the kitchen, sometimes in separate rooms if the wrestling continues and the hunger is too intense to even look at each other.
Our food is specially prepared. It takes forever. A few of us have allergies so all we can eat is venison, lamb, and fish. The smell of the meat poaching for so many minutes sometimes drives us hangry. I’ve heard author and cat dad call us furry sharks. I am okay with this.
Once we eat, I get ready for my nap. My brother tries to have a loud conversation with the humans. Cat dad sometimes answers him back. Mostly, we all ignore him because he never stops talking. I keep telling him the humans don’t understand. I don’t know why he doesn’t accept this.
My author usually isn’t up yet, so I have a few hours to sleep if brother stops talking. He doesn’t often stop talking, so often I’m left resting instead of sleeping.
Once my author wakes, I have about an hour of napping before my workday starts.
