This monkey is a better cat owner than me

My cat doesn't let me do that (Anne Young/Solent News)
My cat doesn't let me do that (Anne Young/Solent News)


This long-tailed Macaque monkey lives with his adoptive kitten in a forest in Bali. I live with mine in Brooklyn. He provides hearty meals for his pet by foraging for small bugs, plant-life and berries, avoiding potential poisons in the process. My cats have empty bowls. I should go downstairs to the bodega on the corner and get some more cat food but I'm sort of sleepy. And it's. so. far. Also I can't decide if I should get tiny expensive cans or bigger cheap cans. Should I give them smaller portions of organic food, or larger portions of stomach-cancer inducing food? Either way, they're going to hate me. I grapple with this dilemma every week.


I also get the sense this monkey's cat is better socialized than mine. Look how it's not hissing and swatting at the other monkey. And there doesn't appear to be a speckled trail of blood on that leaf. Huh. Interesting.

His cat also looks a bit cleaner. Mine are 90 percent black so I can't tell, but based on their smell they're in worse shape than Ginger here. See, if I were that monkey, and that was one of my two cats, I wouldn't be cupping its bottom unless I wanted a reminder of what it felt like to be a litter box. But I guess this cat has learned to properly clean himself after doing his business. And I guess this monkey helped make this cat so well-adjusted.


And I guess they both think they're better than me. I bet if this monkey kept a blog his post would be the exact opposite of mine and have pictures of me posing with my cats beneath a headline that read "I'm a better cat-owner than this human." And I bet he wouldn't make any spelling or grammar mistakes either. And the post would go viral and he'd be rich and able to afford big cans of organic cat food. And his cat would probably know how to use the toilet and flush at this point. It'd probably wear a monocle, or something obnoxious like that just to prove it's smarter than my cats, and that its monkey spared no expense on its education. But what my cats lack in brains, they make up for in brawn.

Hey monkey, your cat better watch his back and wipe that expressionless expression off its mug. Me and my cats are going to teach you a thing or two about what happens to monkeys who show off their parenting skills and then make like it was the work of some nature photographer. Wonton, BabyKat, get 'em. Wonton? BK? Where you going? Get back here! I MAAAAADE YOU! YOU'RE NOTHING WITHOUT ME!

...Hey monkey, what kind of berries you find? Can I've some?