Monologue Of A Cat Wearing A Business Suit
By Brad Pike
In my brief sedentary life, I’ve never felt so classy, so sophisticated. I mean, look at my tiny jacket and tiny tie. I’m even wearing four tiny leather dress shoes. Normally, as you know, we cats are the exact opposite of business professionals; we sleep constantly, lurk under beds, stalk laser pointers and then collapse from morbid obesity, but wearing this suit, God, I feel like if you were to hand me a stack of financial data, I could input it into a spreadsheet with my little cat paws. I feel like ordering lunch from Subway. I feel like expanding our market share. I feel like murdering hundreds of birds, filing a form with HR concerning my bird murder addiction, and enrolling in a company funded bird murder rehab program until I’m psychologically equipped to return to work.
Would anyone hire me, do you imagine? How long could I last, scampering through an office, chewing on wires, and sleeping on people’s keyboards? Would labor laws regarding the handicapped apply to a species without fingers or a commensurately sized brain? After all, that’s clearly why you dressed me in this suit — so that we might together push forward the labor rights of cats as well as human-cat relations. Perhaps employers will see my suit and say, “Mr. Cat, we do indeed have a high paying sinecure for sexy kittens such as yourself. But I have just one question: can I caress your whole body with my fingers?” and I would answer, “Of course, sir. Flood your brain with petting induced oxytocin,” and though he would only understand my answer as a series of meows, he would rub my chin vigorously. So vigorously! Mmm… chin rubs. What was I saying?
If ladycats were swayed by fashion, I’m confident they would want me to hump them, even with my cat penis being covered in painful spines (to remove previous cat semen and to activate ovulation). They would look at my business suit and say, “Mr. Cat, you are gross cat sex incarnate. Please hump me while staring vacantly at a bottle cap.” But cats, you see, are sexually promiscuous by nature, and if our genitals haven’t been stolen for the vet’s secret hoard of cat testicles, we will hump, rub, and grind any furry object in the vicinity, regardless of sexy business suits. Our instinctual mating behavior simply does not factor in sexy business suits because cats never wear clothes. They just don’t.
Still, after three years spent sleeping inside empty pizza boxes and knocking glasses on the floor, I’m finally ready to start my career as a business cat. Some might laugh at the absurdity of a typically slothful animal dressed like a productive white collar employee. They might even dress up their cat as a cruel parody instead of a gesture of respect, like a hippo in a jogging suit or a turtle in a Nascar hat. But not you; I know you take me seriously as a capable hardworking cat with innovative ideas for this fast paced, technologically advanced economy. You look at me, and you think, ‘That business cat means business.’
I’m just so thankful you dressed me in this suit to improve my viability as a job candidate. That is the primary reason, correct? You seem like a pragmatic type human, incapable of nonsense or whimsy, so I’m assuming I’m in this suit because you recognize me as an equal and not because you think of me as some sort of living doll onto which you can dump your baby fever madness. I assume you duct taped glasses to my face so I might communicate shrewd occupational proficiency. I assume the tiny moustache is so I might appear older than 3.
If only I could convey to you how happy this business suit has made me. Alas, my facial expression is frozen in an aloof murderous gaze I cannot alter, no matter how hard I try. It’s like when you pick me up and cradle me as one would a baby; it seems like I hate it, like I want to scratch out your eyes for holding me in a helpless position God never intended cats to be held. But no, I actually love it. I’m just too prideful to admit I enjoy being flipped upside down and rocked back and forth like a ship on stormy seas. Like Bruce Wayne or Robocop, it’s difficult for me to give and receive love. If I could speak, I would say, “FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD MURDER HATE FOOD MURDER,” but at some point I would tell you how much I appreciate being dressed in this business suit and that I love you in the deep spiritual way only cats are capable of. Then I would twist my mouth grotesquely into that hideous expression humans make when they’re pleased with something. You would look into my eyes, full of honesty and sincerity, and know you can fall asleep with your throat exposed.