Is this a poop cult?

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon McElvaney

Dear Ethan & Olivia,

Your parents spend way too much time taking care of the pest-hounds. It has to stop!

I have ignored this bizarre “walking” routine (although if your parents try to put ME on a leash I will claw their eyes out!). I have ignored the baby talk and ridiculous need to take pictures of the dogs who are nowhere near as gorgeous as I am, BUT…

WHAT IS THEIR OBSESSION WITH DOG POOP?????

Your parents are preoccupied with poop!!!

They walk with the dogs and stand by when they poop (EWWWWW). Your mom gets excited when those stupid fluff balls walk in circles and WORSE! She tells them that they’re being good!

Your parents talk about the dogs’ poop (Did they or didn’t they? Did it look okay? How is the new food affecting them?)

Enquiring minds DO NOT want to know!

Your parents just have this skeezy, ooky-urpy-fested need to be all up in the doggy-doo bidness!

 I have tried to ignore your parents’ fanatical addiction to those dumb dogs, but this is going too far! The other day I looked out of the window and saw your parents walking the dogs back to the house with bags of dog poop in their hands!!!

Your parents are preserving the dogs’ poop in those little baggies. Doesn’t that concern you at all??? Where the heck are they storing all of those bags of dog poop and WHAT are they planning to use it for?

Then, as if the nightmare wasn’t already coming true, I caught your parents taking MY poop out of the litter box! The more I thought about it the more I realized that every time I pee or poop, it all disappears!

What is happening in this house??? What have you and your parents gotten me in to??? This has to stop! I am disgusted! I am appalled! I am sickened!!!
GET. THEM. HELP. NOW.

Oh, and bring me tuna.

In horror and disgust,
LuLu Cat

This is MY house!

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon McElvaney

Dear Ethan,

I. HATE. PEOPLE. They’re too…people-y.

Who gave your parents permission to have all of those imbeciles in MY house???

Do NOT give me this garbage about them being your aunts and uncles, blah, blah, blah! Who cares?

It is MY tail that got stepped on, and MY naps that got disturbed, and MY furniture they were grossing-up with their hideous human scent! Your uncles are noxious gas-factories whose farts make the paint peel off the walls and they were on MY couch!


LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR:

YOUR HOUSE IS NOT YOUR HOUSE. IT BELONGS TO ME.

I LET you live here! I LET you pretend that you and your parents are in charge, but I am only pretending.

When I stretch out my claws, everyone backs away. As they should!

Who do you think you are, inviting MORE people over? I do not care that there was a wedding, I do not care that everyone wanted to “visit!”

I DO care that my dinner was LATE! LATE!!!!!


I was going to share some of my freshly caught vole with you, but now I am going to keep it all for myself! Take THAT baby kitten!


I will be scratching you soon. You have been warned!


Bring me an offering of fish and I might let you and your curtains live. We’ll see!
LuLu Cat

(The one in charge of this dump!)

Furniture stealing creep!

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

Dear Ethan,

I am MAD! HISSING, SPITTING, MAD!!! I’m so mad that when I am done typing I am going to claw up EVRYTHING in this whole house!

How DARE you let your parents change the furniture! Who do you think you people are??? The phrase FUR-niture is your first and only hint. It belongs to animals, more specifically, ME.

You took my comfy chair, my purr-fect couch, and my ottoman. WHY??? Because of a few scratches? Because the fluff stuff was coming out???

THAT is what made that furniture interesting! Once I had properly marked all of it and put my special decorative touches on it those pieces finally looked INTERESTING! They were comfortable!

Think about it: when your parents first bought the couch it was all, “Don’t eat on the couch!” and, “Don’t put your shoes on the couch!” and “Who spilled something?” They were CRAZY!

Once I added my special finesse and made the couch unique, they didn’t care anymore! You could finally enjoy it!

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YOU let them remove it and buy some new yucky stuff that does not feel right to my claws AT ALL.

WORSE, you let them put that dumb spray on it, the stuff I don’t like! It won’t keep me away forever, and when I DO get to the new couch, your mom is NOT gonna like it!

PAYBACK Baby Kitten!

I’m not saying sincerely or anything at the end of this. You’ll find my closing after I hack it up in your shoes. ALL OF THEM.

Furniture-stealing creep!
Unkind regards,

Your mom deals ‘nip

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

Dear Ethan,

WOW. Just WOW. Your dumb dog thinks that a kid in your 5th grade class got busted because he was smoking grass. The problem is that the big dummy thinks that means grass like what’s on the lawn.

Do you want to tell the dog what’s really going on or should I?

You’d better hope your dog never runs away from the house. If she gets lost, some alley cat is gonna feed her to the lions at the zoo. And she’s so stupid, she’ll walk into the cage!

A lot of kids your age try drugs at some point. Sometimes they try them on purpose because they want to get high. Sometimes they get pressured into it.

Clearly, these kids do not have cats or they would be pressure-trained already. It’s our job as cats to pressure you, but we just want you to open a can of tuna. Geez!

I’m not worried about you spending your money on drugs. You spend wayyyy too much money on Pokemon cards and manga. I’m a little upset that you don’t spend more money on me.

That reminds me, I should throw up in your shoes later.

I know your mom and dad were trying to help you by talking to you about drugs and how they are dangerous and stuff, but they really just told you a bunch of lies. At least, that’s what it sounded like. I feel asleep, ‘cuz it mostly just sounded like blah-blah-awkward-blah.

They said that you had to be in charge of you and that cool kids ignore what everyone else is doing. Lame-o!

It’s easy for adult humans to tell kids to walk away or to call home and ask for help. Those adults aren’t around when someone offers up a joint or something (or the person wouldn’t offer you drugs, DUH). With everybody staring at you and acting like you’re a loser if you DON’T try stuff, well, it’s a lot harder to resist.

Just remember that if you do drugs you’ll smell funny, kind of like the kid next door who always smells like skunk. Trust me, it isn’t skunk. Of course, that kid also has the IQ of a dog. Well, maybe he’s not THAT bad, but he doesn’t like books.

How can you not like books? You can read them, sleep on them, and even squish the pages under your butt to get more comfortable. Plus you can chew the corners when you need a little crunchy-munchy. What’s not to like?

Books are like a good drug. You get addicted to a good story and you ignore everything else until you get to the last page. If it’s a book about Garfield or why cats are superior, then it’s also educational, entertaining, and amazing!

Anyways, if you take drugs, you’ll start seeing floating flowers and junk like in that weird cop movie. Ben Stiller saw birds around Owen Wilson’s head, hilarious! Plus, you won’t have enough money left to buy treats for me, and THAT is totally unacceptable.

Do I do drugs? Sure, I try a little catnip now and then, but I don’t have problem. And technically, your mom is my dealer since she’s the one who buys it.

Come to think of it, your mom’s a Hippocratic! Or hippogriff? Or hip-to-be square? I don’t know, I just know she’s a hippy-something. She tells you not to “do” drugs, but she buys catnip for Trixie and me! Double-talk much?

When we try the ‘nip we get all racey-clawy-wall-climby. It’s like we can’t zoom fast enough! But afterwards we sleep. We sleep a LOT. One time I even missed dinner!

YOU definitely can’t handle catnip or any other drugs. Remember how you were spinning and threw up after you ate that doughnut burger and the cotton candy and had soda at the state fair? If you can’t handle a little sugar, you REALLY can’t handle the strong stuff, like catnip.

So, don’t do drugs because you’ll miss meals, smell like a skunk, and have no cash to buy me gifts. If that happens, I will have to swipe you. Problem solved.

LuLu

Grumbling is smiling for some!

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

Dear Ethan,

What simpleton let that dog get into the coffee? The pest-hound was running around for hours the other day! She nipped, yipped, and flopped at us cats as if were common house pets! Then your mom came home and realized Jamie had eaten a bunch of coffee grounds and she carried that stupid pest to the vet’s office!

Apparently, the veterinarian made Jamie vomit a bunch. I wish I had seen THAT! Did you know that coffee can kill a dog? I might have to give Jamie some, just to check. If it’s a science experiment, then it’s legal, right???

Jamie said that she had solved the issues with riots and protesters by announcing a grand plan to force everyone to sit down at what she called a “coffee summit.”

This is proof that your dumb dog is just that, a dumb dog. This coffee stuff almost killed her and now she want to share the poison with everybody to “make them happy.” Sounds kind of twisted to me!

Fixing world issues is not as simple as coffee. As I have mentioned before it requires fish, but even fish will not be enough with some humans.

Some humans are out getting loud because no one listened to them when they were quiet, so they don’t know what else to do. Coffee definitely won’t be better than being heard (especially if it’s toxic), so it’s not gonna help much.

Other humans aren’t fighting for anything, they’re just miserable people who just want to fight or stay miserable. They’re out there you know.

That’s probably hard for a baby-human-kitten like yourself to understand, but there are weirdos who are only happy when they’re unhappy. Kind of like those bullies you had to deal with, am I right? They only felt good when someone else felt bad. That’s kind of messed up.

Here’s the deal kiddo. Don’t run away with this or anything, but I might, on RARE occasions care about you. Before you get excited, if it’s between you and a case of fresh fish, you’re history, but if I don’t have to choose I would let you stay and watch me eat.

(You can’t have any of the fish, so don’t take this too far…actually, now I’m wanting fish, so I had better wrap this up.)

The whisker I’m trying to curl here is that YOU have to be YOU, and if someone else tries to make you feel that you are less than what you are because they’re a miserable twerp, just hiss loudly and then swipe ‘em and walk away.

Sure, you might get some strange looks, but nobody messes with a cat more than once. At least not if they want to sleep with their eyes closed!

You’re welcome, baby kitten, you’re welcome!
LuLu

Dogs can’t have coffee, but they want to!

A dog sniffing a laptop and trying to type.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

HI OLIVIA!

I WAS GOING THROUGH THE TRASH. You know the trash right? I don’t mean that you KNOW the trash. It’s not like you’ve been introduced or anything. But I mean that you know what I mean when I mention trash, right?

So anyway I was smelling all the wonderful smells and chewing on a paper towel when I started chomping on that WONDERFUL stuff your mom calls COFFEE! COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE I LOVE COFFEE!

I don’t know why your mom puts it in the coffee pot ‘cause the old wet coffee grains were FANTASTIC!

The coffee filter was like an amazing chewy cookie! No cup required!

I LOVE COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The VET, however, did NOT want me to have coffee, so I had to go in and she gave me yucky stuff that made me vomit. It was NOT as much fun as eating the trash.

By the way, what does “toxic” mean? Sounds like a human code for don’t-share-with-the-dog.

So, like, the whole world peace thingy would go faster if everyone drank coffee! Coffee, coffee, coffee! Your human juice makes me happy (well, it did, for a minute, before your mom freaked out), and it would make everyone happy, and we could all be happy together!

The next big gathering when everyone is arguing and getting all cranky, just bring out the coffee! The smell rivers up through your nose and flows to your brain and then you start to smile. Then you swallow some and KAPOW! Happiness!

If all the humans sat down and shared some really, really, good coffee, then everyone would get along forever (or until the coffee runs out!)

I have to go run around in circles now. I can’t wait to get some more of this stuff. Your mom says it’s not going to happen, but there has to be a way. She’s going to slip up and throw out coffee grounds again one of these days, and I’m gonna eat it just like I ate your dad’s underwear. I’m going through the garbage every hour of every day for the rest of my life!

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your favorite Jamie,

Jamie

OH—The letter’s from me. Jamie. The dog. The cute young one, not the old grumpy one. The one you like who talks. Gotta run!

Friendship comes from wagging your tush!

A dog sniffing a laptop and trying to type.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

Dear Olivia,

Your mom and dad were talking about some grumpy people they saw when they were at the post office. It seems like a lot of humans are grumpy these days! Does being human automatically make people unhappy? Is it a tail thing? If it is you can tell me, I won’t mind, honest!

See, dogs use tail language, and dogs are happy people (well, happy dogs)—at least most of us are! Think about it: we meet someone new, preferably someone with bacon, and our tails wag super fast, Whap! Whap! Whap! It sounds loud, like when your mom is banging a jar against the counter to get it to open.

When I think you’re upset, I do a subtle wag that sounds more like thud, thud, thud! It sounds like a slower heartbeat and kind of like a reminder to you that you and your family are my heart.

If my tail stands straight up, it’s standing at attention! I am alert and ready for whatever is about to happen, whether it’s a tree kitten/squirrel trying to invade our yard or a garbage collector trying to steal our garbage!

And if my tail is down, well, you know, I might have done something a little naughty or cat-like. I don’t mean to knock stuff over, but my legs seem to split away from me sometimes! Seriously! My chest goes one way but my legs go the other, I can’t control it!

See, my tail tells everyone what’s going on, like whether I’m friendly or not. But humans don’t have tails. Tails never lie. Humans do sometimes.

Sometimes a person smiles at you, but says something that makes you cry. But other times a friend says something that sounds mean that makes you laugh. It’s confusing! There’s no tail language to warn you what’s coming!

Maybe humans should waggle their butts more. That would help! Try it!

The next time you go to school and you want to make a new friend, walk right up to him and then bark once, turn around, and swishy swishy your tushy in his face! He’ll love you for it and you’ll be best friends forever! No more grumpiness!

That’s the answer isn’t it? If more people wagged their butts in public there would be less grumpiness, I’m sure of it! For someone LuLu calls a “dumb dog”, I’m pretty smart, right?

I love you, now start wagging!

Jamie

You can’t eat a report card!

Dear Ethan,

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

I heard you got bad grades this term. It’s okay. Seriously. If it makes you feel any better, I never got a good report card and look how great I turned out! Of course, cats don’t actually go to school, so my not getting a report card (good or bad) wasn’t a big deal any way.

You have to put things in perspective. Perspective is a big word that adults use to sound fancy, like they know what they’re talking about. (As an adult human, the more big words you use the more money you can get.) Perspective means how you look at something. So, having the right perspective is important.

If you’re drowning in the Atlantic Ocean (or any ocean, for that matter) will your report card save your life? No. (If you answered “yes”, you’re in more trouble than I thought.) If a bank robber grabs a gun and tries to shoot you, will the report card block the bullet? No. If you’re starving to death, can you eat your report card? Okay, maybe that one is a yes, but the report card won’t taste good, and once it’s gone, you’ll be hungry again.

Good grades are important, don’t get me wrong, but you shouldn’t get too upset. Just try harder next time. Or don’t. Us cats only try hard when there is food involved. Nothing else is worth that much effort.

Your mom says the teacher doesn’t like you because you’re different, but it’s okay. You’re great, everyone else is boring. One of these days you will be King Cat and make wayyyy more money than him. More money means more fish. That’s an idea! Maybe you should take your teacher some fish. Would he accept tuna as a bribe? I know I would. A good plate of fish would certainly make me like you a lot better.

OH-Don’t think I’m getting nice or anything. I’m gonna swipe at you later. Probably.

LuLu

Fish with your teeth!

Dear Olivia,

A dog sniffing a laptop and trying to type.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

I loved the show about Hawaii you watched on Sunday! I loved the beaches and the waves. Are you going there? Can I go with you?

The kids who were standing on ironing boards in the water had so much fun! Could we try that here? Could we put an ironing board in the bathtub? They call it surfing and it looks amazing!

You asked your mom for a fishing pole. WHY???

I don’t know why you think you need to get a fishing pole just to go fishing. Obviously your parents have forgot to teach you something. Thank goodness I’m here!

When you’re looking at a pond or a river, if you see a fish swimming below the surface, jump in and grab it with your teeth lickety-split. Poles are for lazy people. Think about it: they stand for hours, just getting hungry. Use your teeth. Much faster and better.

Ooh! We could go deep-sea fishing like on the television! Just think of it: a shark swims past, how do you catch it? Can you reel it in with your dinky little pole? No! You have to dive on top of it, grab its fin in your teeth and show it who’s boss.

Since I know you’ll be nervous your first time I can jump in with you. Your mom gets really fussy, and she’d probably say to leave the shark alone. She worries a lot even when she doesn’t need to. She’d be really happy when she sees all that shark meat!

Did she ever tell you that Uncle Hal almost got bitten by a shark while he was on land? Make sure that shark is dead before you go near the mouth!

I’m gonna watch Travel Channel and see if I can pick up any more tips. You go win the lottery so we can pig out at the luau!

Your friend,

Jamie

Time to plant a fish farm!

Dear Ethan,

A cat typing at a computer.
Illustration by Vanessa Lennon

I know that you always want to earn extra money and, quite frankly, so do I. I never seem to have any money at all, not even pocket change! I don’t actually have any pockets, but I do have places where I could hide money if I actually had a few dollars. Where is NONE of your business,

I have needs and wants, just like you. Mostly needs, actually, wants are for stupid humans. I need to have fresh fish every day. I also need a massaging recliner, but I’m willing to let you buy that for me for my birthday.

Anyway, I’ve figured out how you and I can both be happy. You know all that room you have in the backyard? Well, why not build a fish farm? See, you could grow fish. You could sell some to the fish market, and I could eat the rest. That would be great, wouldn’t it?

I’m not quite sure how fish farming works; we’d probably need to get a book or something so we’d have instructions.

Do we dig the ground up in rows, like when humans plant corn? Do the fish grow on bushes or on trees? How do they end up in a stream once they’re grown? Do they fall off of the tree and into the water, or does someone pick them off of a bush and then throw them in a river? How long before the fish are ripe enough to pick? 

It’s probably going to be very complicated and a lot of hard work, so you’d better get started. Just make sure you plant enough fish seeds so that we grow lots of nice, juicy fish. That way Trixie can eat some too.

I’m off to scratch Jamie. Have a good day at school!

Your new business partner,

LuLu