~*~ MY GRIEVANCES ~*~

There is a machine inside this house that makes cold air. I have felt it. I know it is real. It is the single greatest thing our species has ever been given and it is running, right now, on the other side of this door.

And here is me. Outside. On the warm boards.

Note that somebody was inside, with the cold air, and rather than opening the door they took a photograph of me not being able to get in. That is the part I would like the record to reflect. I was suffering and it was content.

One day I will learn to work a handle and there will be a reckoning.

I am fed at approximately 7:00 AM and approximately 5:30 PM. I want you to do the arithmetic on that. There are, by my count, upwards of nine hours in between. Nine. Hours.

In that gap I have nothing. No provisions. No supply drop. Just me, my toys, and a slowly hollowing sensation that my family have chosen to describe as "she's fine, she just ate."

She just ate. Four hours ago. In dog hours that is roughly a calendar year.

I have tried everything. The stare. The sigh. The dramatic collapse onto expensive rugs. The standing next to the bowl and looking at the bowl and then looking at the human and then looking at the bowl again, which I consider my strongest work.

Nothing. They just say "aww" and take a picture. My anguish has become content for these people.

There is a cat here.

The cat gets fed twice a day. The same as me. I have been in this family considerably longer, I do substantially more work — patrolling, greeting, supervising deliveries, lying down in strategic locations — and yet we are on identical rations. There is no seniority. There is no merit component. It's a scandal.

And look at what I do for her. Look at it. I groom this cat. I lie next to this cat in the heat and we hold the line together. I love this cat, which is not something I planned and not something I am fully at peace with.

But it is a one-way arrangement, labour-wise, and I want that acknowledged. This household runs on my effort and the cat runs on vibes.

This is Mr. Hedgehog. He is mine. He has been mine since he arrived and he will be mine until there is nothing left of him but a damp opinion.

Periodically, mommy decides he "smells." Of course he smells. That's the whole feature. He smells of me. That is the entire value proposition of Mr. Hedgehog and she wants to put him in a machine and take it off him.

Each time he comes back he is clean and fluffy and completely wrong and I have to spend a full week restoring him at considerable personal effort.