The Secret Life of Cats and Dog

I woke to the alarm. My Taller Half informed me in a not-too-happy tone that I had left the television on last night.

I didn’t. I didn’t watch tv last night.

It’s on Minecraft, MTH replied.

I played Minecraft once with the son of some dear friends. He was small and adorable and incredibly skilled at the game. I wasn’t any of those things. He’s a teenager now.

It was the dog or the cats.

I walked to the living room and found the tv on some channel that was streaming Minecraft or playing a recording of a streaming session. It was an accident, I assumed. A cat jumping from one piece of furniture to another landed on the remote or knocked it on the floor and the dog stepped on it. How it got to that channel is a mystery. My mind began to ponder which ones would enjoy Minecraft. Do they play games at night or watch their favorite shows? If so, they manage to turn the tv off before we wake up most of the time. Fanciful, yes, but we live in a house where one cat and our dog can open doors. Little would surprise me.

But I didn’t have time to think about it. Work would start in about half an hour. The water will be off today. Last week, some men from the City of Pixley donned fluorescent yellow vests and walked the neighborhood with door hangers, letting us know they would be working on the pipes today, the water would be off, and we would be on a boil water order afterward. Joy.

Tallboy, our door-opening cat, sat at the window looking despondent. Perhaps he knows about the water problems, or he is sad he couldn’t finish watching Minecraft. Or maybe he’s just thinking ordinary cat thoughts, looking for birds, imagining stalking his prey. I wish I knew the thoughts that our cats and dog entertain, but I guess I never will. They hold fast to their secrets.