As It Should Be

This is outrageous. Absurd. Why it's almost criminal!

I have been sitting by my food bowl and staring at Mother for at least four days (I also don't know how to tell time). Does she not see me? Is she ignoring me?

This behavior is ridiculous, and unfair, and I will not stand for it!

I mean, look at this!

It's practically empty. It's almost like Mother wants me to starve.

That must be it. She hates me and wishes me dead.

It's bad enough that she brought two tiny humans, another freeloader cat, and a wily little kitten into the house. I didn't raise a fuss for any of it. I even accepted the two other cats as my very own neighbors. And this is how she treats me?

I'm being starved!

No. No, let's not be dramatic now. Perhaps Mother just hasn't seen me...Wait, I know!

I waltz over to where she is in the human cooking area, which is not where I get my food, but I do get crisp fresh water from the fishes house (when Mother isn't around. She shoots me with that Devil's tool, the squirt bottle if she sees me drinking from there. Touchy human. I thought it was neighborly to share).

I languidly graze right passed her leg, just out of reach, then rest my back hip against her. I make sure to look up at her with my biggest squinty eyes, slowly blinking and purring in the way she melts for.

She looks down at me and I know I've got here right where I want here. But she just looks and raises one of those caterpillars etched above her eye and she...how dare she! She scoffed!

"You only do that when you want food."

The nerve.

"It's cute and all."

The audacity.

"But I already fed you."

Lies! Scandal! Betrayal!

She kicks me out of the way (I'm sure it's a kick, because I moved the tiniest bit aside, so surely it's out of hate) and says, "Go on Remy, I'm cooking."

Oh, you think this is over, 'Mother'? It's just started!

She facing the "stove" (which she yells at me to stay off of. Honestly, if my Egyptian Ancestors saw my treatment, they'd smite all of human-kind), so I pounce. Right up onto the counter.

She's focused on the human food. Meat. I can smell it. It's a meal of the Gods that these humans selfishly hoard. She won't give me pieces, that much I know. Blasted woman.

No matter.

I go right over to where a plastic box sits by the edge of the counter. Now this isn’t a normal box; it’s much too small for even my beautiful frame to settle in. Of all the items within reach, this box is the most offensive. (Honestly, who made a box that a cat can't sit in?)

With a few spastic swats, I send the box careening to the floor. The clatter of it on the tile makes Mother jump. The tip of my tail flicks in delight.

She spins around, sees me on the counter, sees the offensive box on the floor, and her face twists in anger.

"Remington Charles!" Hehe, my full name, hmm Mother? She must be truly mad-

Abort, abort! She's grabbing the squirt bottle!

The hiss of water from the nozzle nearly matches my own as I high-tail it down the hall. I pass by the freeloader.

He is fluffier than me and looks much scrappier, but he is the weakest of the bunch. On the other hand, the kitten looks sweet and docile but is actually a psychopath.

Even now, he swipes at me as I skid by. I voice my displeasure loudly and repeatedly. This menace in a kittens coat does not care. He swipes at me again.

This disrespect won’t stand. I raise up on my hind legs to smack him back and Mother…

She has the gall to squirt me. Me! Like I’m the problem here.

No more.

I cannot live in a place where I am so neglected and hated. I’ll run away. I’ll run far away!

If only I could open these blasted human doors.

I scratch and mewl at one. Its the one that leads to the enclosed prison they call a yard. I know better than to sit by the door leading directly to escape. Mother guards it closely.

After another twelve years of waiting (Years? Minutes? Seconds? Eh, whatever. Time is a human construct anyway), Mother comes around the corner.

“What’s wrong, Puddin’?”

Don’t try to butter me up with cute nicknames, woman. You know very well what I want. I stare at the door to emphasize my point.

“No Remy, it’s too hot outside.”

If I could cast a curse on her, I would. She must hate me. I was right in my musings earlier (of course I was).

“Jeeze, Remy, okay. Here you go.”

As I’m trying to set her aflame with my mind, I hear it. The soft angelic tinkling of kernels on porcelain.

“Here’s a snack.”

My paws slide against the tile as I rev up then skid into the kitchen.

“But that’s all you get.”

She's…adding food to my bowl.

“So don’t you beg at daddy.”

After all these years!

The other two heathens are at their own bowls. I shove them aside to get to mine. As I eat this new (albeit pathetic) offering, I glance to Mother.

She has settled on the cat bed in the living room, which she calls a couch but it’s curved perfectly for me so a cat bed it is. I could curl up on the cushion beside her head. It is my favorite spot when I want her warmth but not her cuddles.

No. We shan’t be cruel. Today, she has earned my love.

I casually saunter over and flop down in her lap, allowing and, dare I say, even enjoying the chin scritches.

Mother isn’t so bad after all.