How Now, Meow - an Expose'

by Mewsette

Something new is coming out this Fall that you may not have heard about yet.

You know how humans are always trying to figure out what we cats are saying to them? It would help if they just listened to us more carefully. It helps if a cat is especially gifted at teaching our language to humans, too, like I am. There are books on the subject of understanding what we say, but they are all written by - you guessed it - humans. Not exactly the world's authorities on the langage of Meow.

Well, listen up, kitties. That's about to change. And I think we better be aware of the dastardly plot that I just heard about! Come closer, and I'll tell you.

A new cat-shaped machine called a "Meowlingual" is set to go on sale this Fall. They say this machine can translate our meows and purrs into phrases humans can understand! I am not making this up! The only phrase they admitted to translating so far is "I can't stand it." Does that tell you anything?

How does it do this? You're gonna laugh. Oh yes, we cats do too laugh. A human has to hold the microphone of the thing up to our mouth, and hope we say something! Well, no self-respecting cat is gonna say anything into a microphone, let me tell you! We don't even talk on the telephone when a human wants us to. Only when they don't. This is further proof that our humans, much as we love them, don't have the faintest idea how good at contrariness we are. Guess we'll have to show them.

They had one of these things for dogs before, called a Bowlingual. Now I ask you! How many things would a dog think of to say, anyway? Dogs had to wear theirs on their collar, but then you know how disgustingly cooperative dogs can be. At least we're not expected to wear the cat version. Some rocket scientist might have noticed it's bigger than we are. I don't know how big it is, but I did purrloin a picture of it. Shhh, here it is:



Can you believe that?! What do you mean, "cute"; no it isn't. This infernal machine is going on sale, so they say, this November in Japan. That's where they made it. If you hear your humans talk about going shopping in Japan, wherever that is, you better hide.

And more than that. kitties, I think we're going to have to unite in protest about this. Unless you really want your human to hear "Get that microphone out of my face before I bite you". I thought of a few things we might do if we ever see one of these contraptions in our happy homes. I'm sure you can think of some, too.

1. Drag it off and hide it. (They might find it. You'd have to pick a place they never clean.)
2. Talk the dog into eating it. (You may not have a dog. I don't, thank goodness.)
3. Refuse to enter any room it's in. (See paragraph below about sneaky humans.)
4. Refuse to meow for the rest of your life. (Nope, gulp! I couldn't.)
5. Pee on it. (Ahh. That'll do nicely.)


But don't underestimate the sneakiness of humans, even our own dear meowmies. Did you ever have to get medicine you didn't want? Ever get a photo taken of you just as you were doing something undignified? Sneaky. A word to the wise.