Listen, Cat, you need to work on your pattern recognition skills

Why are you afraid of the cat-carrier when every time you go into the cat-carrier something good happens for you?

Please don’t fight me on this. Your insistence on fighting me whenever I try to get you to go into the cat-carrier is embarrassing for both of us. You know I will eventually get you in there no matter how much you fight and claw and scratch and bite. We should both know that when it’s all said and done you’ll be better off for going in there. I would appreciate if you could save me some blood in the process.

Do you think I’ll never let you out again? Do you seriously think I’m going to trap you in there forever? I get it, you also think I’m going to forget to feed you every day. Somehow you think I’m going to forget to feed you while I am actively feeding you. I grab your food and say “Hello to you, my best friend the cat, it is time to feed you” and you look at me and scream as if to say “That can of cat food you are holding better be cat food for me!” I just told you it’s food for you! Also, I don’t eat cat food. I am not a cat. Even though I read somewhere that cats think that people are big cats, that is not what we are, we are people. I promise you this cat food is for you, the cat.

Just as I will never forget to feed you I also will not forget to release you from the carrier, exactly the same as every other time you’ve been in there. Do I also remind you that you always come out of the carrier better off than you were when you went in there? Great stuff happens for you when you go in that carrier. Every time you go into that carrier you win the cat lottery.

The first time literally saved your life. While it was technically a cat-trap and not a cat-carrier I’m going to count this anyway, as the cat-trap and cat-carrier have similar shapes and dimensions. You were living in an alley behind a dumpster, if I must remind you. You had to eat garbage. Part of me recognizes the romance of this life. Sometimes I daydream of drifting from place to place, with no responsibilities, nobody to report to, going wherever the wind takes me. While I can recognize the romance in being a free cat of the streets, you weren’t really thriving. You weren’t living an enviable life of freedom. You never saw Paris. You pretty much stuck to that dumpster alley because you knew there would be garbage for you to eat. I’ll tell you this when I daydream about being a drifter myself it doesn’t include eating trash — it does include Paris. I’ve never seen Paris. I should go to Paris. I don’t have to be a drifter to go to Paris.

Do you know you were supposed to be neutered and released back into the wild to live a feral life, but I had to nurse you back to health first? During that time you decided that you liked being inside our cozy home where it’s warm and has blankets and you get to eat food and not trash. This was your decision. You could have decided to stay wild and crazy and you would have been released into to wild when you were healthy again. But you’re a fancy little bitch and like your fancy little bitch life.

So here we are. I don’t think you understand how nice it is that somebody just scooped you up and said “Come with me I have a better life for you here” and now you have a better life. I wish somebody would knock on my door and do for me what I did for you. I guess, minus the getting neutered thing. But, hey, if I had the human equivalent of your life I might consider it. Let’s Freaky Friday right now, see how you like it. You can do everything for me plus go to work plus take care of the home and in return every once in a while I’ll sit by you and look cute. But not for too long, and if I see that you like it too much I will hightail away and hide somewhere until you’re not so thirsty anymore.

Honestly, I would do it. The more that I think about it the more I’m sure I would trade my ability to procreate if somebody trapped me, whisked me away to a huge house I had the run of, I didn’t have to work anymore, just got to sit in the sun and nap all day. Take my balls and give me that!

I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear this. None of this is your fault. Except, I guess, the part where you refuse to go into the carrier so I can take you for a spa day. Did you know that? That’s why I’m trying to get you to go in there, so you can have a spa day. I’ve never been treated to a spa day!

Cat, while I’m still frustrated that you are not voluntarily and easily getting into this carrier, I can appreciate that you have taught me some lessons about myself today. Once I get you into this carrier I’m going to treat myself to a spa day, book a trip to Paris, and call my doctor and talk about getting a vasectomy.