The Cat Has Feedback

At first, the feedback from the cat was benign.?“Typo in second sentence, page 3.”?Then gently critical.?“Self-aggrandizing’ is a bit over the top, maybe try ‘arrogant’ or even ‘cocky.'”?I don’t know why, but I wasn’t at all surprised that my cat was an excellent speller, plus, you know, spell check.?Occasionally there would be links to articles related to things I was working on.?“Great article linking male pattern baldness with psychopathy” when I was working on an ad campaign for a shampoo that supposedly regrew hair.?I tried to believe that this wasn’t also a comment on my own male pattern baldness and tendency to zone out while putting my socks on in the morning.?“Check out this Reddit thread about how women hate ingrown toenails” when I was working on some ads for a toenail fungus cream.?I immediately went out and got a pedicure after that one, just in case. Then things turned decidedly more critical.?Subject lines like: “I thought you were an English major.”?“Reads like you wrote this in front of Netflix.”?And the vague but always unwelcome “Flabby.”?This last subject line caused me to cut out both carbs and adverbs.

The cat’s emails would come at odd hours.?3:12 AM.?11:59 PM.?Or sometimes they’d appear while I was in the bathroom.?I’d be sitting there, scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, fighting off the ennui that comes from seeing the endless self-actualized and glamorous lives of people I haven’t spoken to in decades.?Actually, let’s change “ennui” to “depression” in that last sentence. ?As you can see, I’ve come to internalize the cat’s point of view.?Anyway, I’d be sitting and scrolling when my phone would ping and I’d just know it was the cat again.?I’d rush out of the bathroom and sprint to the desktop in my home office, sometimes tripping over my pants which would invariably still be down around my ankles.??But the cat was never there.?I’d pull up my pants and go find him, usually splayed in front of one of the heating vents in the dining room, apparently asleep, or licking his paws in preparation of yet another self-administered bath.?“I know it was you.”?I’d say.?He’d just blank stare back at me, a sphinx of denial, but there was always the faintest whiff of feline judgement in the air.

The cat’s appearances during Zoom meetings with my clients, once a welcome moment of furry cuteness, now became filled with what could only be called manipulative meowing.?The protestations were particularly loud when I ignored creative changes that the cat had suggested.?The clients caught onto this quickly.?“I don’t think your cat likes that line.”?They’d say with a smile.?Sometimes they’d agree with the cat.?“You know, your cat has a point, let’s ‘scratch’ that section.”?Of course, I’d have to laugh along with them.?“’Scratch’ that section, yup that’s exactly what the cat was thinking!” I’d say, fake chuckling, all the while seething, while also knowing, the cat was probably right.?Sometimes I’d push back and refuse to make a change, just out of spite. ??When I did this the cat would one up my spitefulness and end the Zoom altogether with a snarky swipe of his black and white mittened paw.

I tried locking the door to my home office.?The next morning the office door key was missing off my key ring and the door was wide open.?That morning the subject line in the cat’s email was a simple “Nice try.”???I tried dropping him at the animal shelter.?But my phone rang as soon as I got home.?“We got your email with the subject line ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake.’ of course you can come pick up your beloved cat.”?I even found an old flour sack and a couple of bricks and drove out to a bridge over a river.?As I stood on the bridge, the cat in the bag, ready to throw my fiercest critic into oblivion, he didn’t struggle.?He just sat in the bag silently biding his time.?Then as I swung the sack back to throw it over the railing, he hit me with a simple but powerful “meow.”?A “meow” that said, “Really??Drowning a cat in a river??What is this 1941? Where did you even find a flour sack??This tired cliche is proof that you need me.”?I put him back in the car, stopping at the supermarket on the way home and getting him his favorite stinky canned food.

So now when I write anything, like right now, I’ve resigned myself that the cat will have feedback.?Except now the feedback is no longer delivered in secret. Now he sits right next to me, his eyes fixed on the screen of my desktop watching every word unfold letter by letter.?I’ve come to realize that we are a pretty good team the cat and I.?And I’ve come to understand that there’s a certain genius in our interspecies collaboration.?Wait, hang on a second, the cat thinks that could be better.?I’ve come to understand that the cat is in fact a much better writer than I am.?Well, I don’t know if I’d put it exactly that way.?Oh, now we’re hissing. Well, I just don’t agree.?Don’t you dare turn that computer…