Humans need to work together in 2026, not argue

Good day to you humans, I am Sylvanus Windrunner Seinberg-Hughes, or Sylvie the cat, and I’ve taken over Mike’s computer today. I have decided to speak to humans as I see some serious issues bubbling that must be addressed by you opposable thumb types. Mainly, I hear a great deal of you out there arguing about silly things.

Here it is, the season where you bring out the tall green, lit-up, decorated scratching posts with all the shiny cat toys hung on them. You create lots of interesting smelling food, put lights around the litter box and generally run around like hummingbirds on a sugar high for about a month to make yourselves feel jolly. Funny thing is that, by the time the season ends, you all just appear wasted, broken, depressed, and hung over. You people seriously need more naps.

But besides the usual yearly madness, there seems to be an extra layer of tension and grumpiness overlaid on your rather fragile society. I keep hearing about some group of evil humans you refer to as billionaires as the main reason, you’re all so angry and unhappy. My human staff has indicated that this very tiny group has stolen most of the resources you folks place value on and that has left most humans in need.

In the cat world, if a particular cat eats more food or overuses the litter box (kind of tied in there) we tend to address the issue in a direct manner. Usually, some loud yelling suffices but occasionally claws, teeth, and expulsion are known to come into play. In our well-ordered society, we cats all share in things so nobody goes wanting; it’s simply common sense for a civilized species. What’s the excuse for your silly resource management?

It seems to me that, if you all simply agreed the billionaire creatures need to share, you could then force them to do so. You far outnumber them, your needs are legitimate, and no one individual needs so much that others suffer, that’s just common sense. Or is common sense now considered an oxymoron among humans? 

In the world of cats where we run from the svelte to the chonks, we still make sure everyone’s needs are met to the very best of our abilities. There’s a cat in my neighborhood that stops by every so often to say hi and, if I have some extra mouse, or cat food, I always share. It’s just polite. Why is that such a tough concept for people who invented the easy-open can to grasp?

My staff is very invested in donating to something they call a food bank on a regular basis, but if you have grocery stores everywhere, why would you need a food bank? Perhaps it’s because my cat food cans have gone from about 50 cents to over a dollar in the last couple years, and I’m not quite sure why that is. Have chicken innards, or those wonderful dead-fish smelling shreds suddenly become rare, or hard to find? Or are those billionaire types messing about again? You folks really need to rein that bunch in. 

It’s very simple. You need to be paid decently to keep us and yourselves fed and housed properly. I’ve heard you people contribute to the greater good collectively by paying something called taxes that get collected by something called government, which then spends that money, theoretically, to help your society.

But again, you vastly outnumber these government types and supposedly you choose them every couple of years so, if they’re doing a bad job, you should choose some better ones.

I suppose, when you get right down to it, if you humans are allowing small groups of you to make life worse for most of you, then you should simply agree on that, and fix it. Choose better pack leaders, tax people who have too much, and use that wonderful human nature that allows you to take such good care of us, to do the same for each other. It’s how civilized beings act. Get with the program, folks!

Editor’s note: Mike Seinberg says that Sylvie has been running her home for more than 10 years now, and with her feral sister, Nibbler, keeps the humans in line.