“I still feel like there’s something you aren’t telling me. Some vital bit of information about human psychology that would explain the twat.” Regret the cat was on about Trump again. He sneaks out early to steal my neighbor’s newspaper before my alarm’s gone off. So by the time I’ve poured my first cup of coffee he’s jacked up and pissed at the world.
“You shouldn’t use that word.”
“Twat. I shouldn’t call him twat? How about cunt. Can I call him that?”
“I think,” I said, picking Regret off the kitchen counter and tossing him gently to the floor. “I think women would ask why you feel it necessary to refer to a man using crude terms referring to women’s bits. Why drag them into this at all?” I grabbed coffee for both of us and headed to the kitchen table. “You want milk?”
“I’m a fucking cat. Do I want milk. Yes. Yes, please. Bourbon too, if you’ve got it.”
“I don’t. Wouldn’t give it to you if I did. You’re bad enough with just coffee.”
I watched him take a long drink then wipe his face with his paws.
“How about scrotum. Ok if I call him that?”
“I like that.”
“You like scrotum? I’ve long suspected that you are queer.”
“I meant I like it as a description of our president. More than I like descriptions about him that involve twats or cunts.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want to offend any women who are never here. You should try being gay. Maybe you’d have more luck.”
“This is all,” I said, wishing now that I had some bourbon for my coffee, “This is all funny coming from someone with no balls at all.”
“Not my choice. And a low blow anyway. Beneath your dignity.”
“I apologize. Didn’t mean to drag that into the conversation. Fixing you wasn’t my call, lest you forget. That was your first owner.”
“She was a cunt.”
“She was my girlfriend,” I said.
“So you would know better than anyone.”
“Anyway. We’re in the weeds here. You were saying something about Trump.”
“Right. I don’t understand. What the hell is wrong with you people? What did you hope to accomplish by voting that twisted old prune into office?”
“I expect that they’ll be asking that question for decades.”
“Who’s they?”
“PHD students, cable news nitwits, middle aged men and their literary devices talking over coffee in the morning.”
“Fuck yourself,” he stood up, stretched and knocked the coffee off the table. The mug bounced across the floor. A wise man does not give his cat coffee in a ceramic mug. “I’m going to go take a shit.”
“Not on my neighbor’s doorstep again, please.”
“No, I’m going to take a shit in his paper, wrap it up night and THEN put it back on his doorstep. He probably won’t notice. I’ll take it right on the scrotum’s picture.”
“You’re a cunt,” I say, kicking him out the door into the cold autumn morning air.