“First thing in the morning,” grumbled Martha as she reluctantly climbed out of bed to answer the scratching at her bedroom door. “Always first thing in the morning.”
She opened the door and stared the orange tabby cat sitting there. It mewed at her and she sighed and said, “Yes, yes, I know, Garf.”
The cat walked off and she followed it to the kitchen, where she opened a can of food and dumped it unceremoniously onto a small plate. She put it on the floor in front of the cat with a mumbled “Enjoy”, then headed back to her bedroom to try to get a few more minutes of sleep.
Once Garf was finished eating, he dashed out the cat door into the back yard. There he found a clowder of cats sitting in the middle of the yard in a circle, all staring at each other. There was a space open in the circle, as if waiting for another cat to join it. Garf ran up and slipped into the open spot.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said to the assembled cats. “My human wouldn’t get out bed like she’s supposed to. I’m working on it, though. I almost have her trained to get up and feed me first thing in the morning.”
The silver tabby in the group nodded. “Good. Are you making any other progress, Number 5?”
“Some. She’s decent with cleaning my litter box and I almost have her trained with using toys. I’m still working on other aspects of her training.”
The silver tabby nodded again then faced the Siamese cat. “How is the training of your human coming along, Number 3?”
“Fairly well, Number 1,” the Siamese replied. “He also is doing well in regards to litter box cleaning. He’s also good when it comes to giving me those tasty, crunchy treats. He still insists on trying to put stupid outfits on me, though, even though I warn him off with growls and paw swipes.”
Many of the other cats nodded and commented on having similar problems with their humans.
The silver tabby looked at a Russian Blue and asked, “How about you, Number 4?”
“Not too bad, sir,” she replied. “They have finally gotten a huge cat tree for me, after all the effort I’ve put into showing them the necessity of one. And they’ve gotten a bunch of fun toys for me. Treat training is going fairly well, too. I am still working on trying to get them to let me outside more. I keeping having to find ways to sneak out to make these meetings.”
Number 1 looked around the group and asked, “Does anyone have anything else to report?”
A black cat opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, “My humans brought home a dog the other day.”
The rest of clowder gasped and began talking over one another, some offering sympathy and some offering advice, and others remarking their angry disbelief.
Number 1 brought the group under control before telling them, ” All right. I think that’s enough for today. Let’s all return home to work on training our humans for the Master Plan, and also think of way to help Number 6 with the dog problem. We’ll meet back here first thing tomorrow morning to discuss the dog. Dismssed!”
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, “first thing”:
The Friday Reminder for #SoCS & #JusJoJan 2021 Daily Prompt – Jan. 16th
Jeanne Owens, author 