Mr. A and I recently left our cats (and, you know, kid) with my parents while we went on a quick trip to a wedding, and before we left I sat down and wrote out instructions about how and when to pick Kick up from school and what packages we were expecting and how to work the coffeemaker.

I then devoted two entire long paragraphs to how Ada never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, shuts the fuck up even for a second:

Dear Mom and Dad, Miss Kitty-Witty will yell at you from the second you let her out of the basement in the morning until the moment she goes back down there willingly for her bedtime. She will yell at you if she has pushed her mousie under the front closet door and can’t reach it. She will yell at you if her food bowl is empty. She will yell at you if her water is not to her liking. She will yell at you if her litter box is less than pristine. She will yell at you if you are petting Slade. She will yell at you if you are petting her. She will yell to be brushed and have her nails clipped and while you are doing these things, which you do not need to do because I’ve just done them, she will continue to yell.

She will yell and yell and yell and you will text me to ask if she needs to go to the vet because maybe she is sick, and I will text you back that we have taken her to the vet for this exact reason and the vet has examined her and she is fine. She just likes to talk. She likes to chitter and chirp and she thinks it’s the funniest thing on earth if you meow and then she meows and then you meow and then she meows and so on and so forth forever and ever, amen. Please feed her and try not to turn her into a hat, we love her tremendously but she’s absolutely the worst.

Love,

A.