Smudgie Launches Blog (Blog #1)

Hi there - my name is Smudgie and there are two things you should know about me. Firstly - I am adorable and secondly I am a cat. I live in a house with two other cats - Ruby and Bella - and our human, Jack. We have decided to think of him as – well - 'special'.

We have been through turmoil recently - Jack has been out of work and fretting about losing the house. He came to us and said - "You know there is a recession on?" "Hmmm", we say flicking through Vogue to laff at models who think they are graceful - because to us Naomi Campbell has all the grace of a sofa pushed off a tall cliff.

"Well - you know I am low on my savings and it's hard out there so I think we need to talk about economising". "What is economising, Jack?" we say. "Economising is where we have to cut down on our expenditure". "But we don't pay out no expenditure," we say. At this point his eye starts to tic. "Look," - he say - "you know how I get you cat food in square trays?" "Yes" - we say - "although three weeks ago you gave us chicken two servings in a row"."Anyway", say Jack –

“Two servings in a row – "

“Anyway," say Jack trying to control his tic by slapping his hand over it, "I was thinking -" "Yes?" we say thinking this is the start of a joke. "I was thinking - you never seem to actually finish off a tray of cat food. I mean you leave about a quarter of it to be thrown away."

"We leave some for Mr. Manners, Jack" we say pleasantly. "Well, here's the thing - if we buy pouches - they have a quarter less food in them AND they're cheaper."
We look at him blankly as if he is a chimpanzee trying to give out directions to the airport.
"They're a quarter less," he says slowly "and they're ... cheaper! So that's what I want to do."

Silence. And then we erupt in hilarity. This be funny. FUNNY!

We fall off sofa. We fall off chair. We hit ground with paws and roll about laffing. We slap each other with paws. We laff and laff and laff for 15 minutes.

Then realise he is being serious.

Silence.

“You mean .... LESS food?" we say.
"You're eating the same VOLUME of food but it is cheaper," he says. "But it's LESS food, Jack," we say. "Yes, technically it is less food but because you leave a quarter on the plate you'll be eating the same amount so everyone wins. See?"
"But it's still LESS food on the plate," we chorus wishing chimpanzee was here.
"LESS FOOD. Why would WE want to have LESS food, JACK?"
"Yes", says Ruby, "WHAT ABOUT MR FRIGGING MANNERS?!"
Jack get sheet of paper and draws diagrams on it with grafs and numbers and presents it to us. Bella looks at it and tears it up. "Just keep buying the trays, she says "and no one will get hurt".

End of discussion.

Bella wanders off muttering 'that boy not right in head."