Yesterday, over to Sainsbury's to get, among other things, more cat food (and with instructions from the owners not to even think of saving money by buying anything other than Felix 'As Good as it Looks'). Walking the cat food aisle I notice among the cat toys a "Babble Ball", advertised as an "Interactive talking toy for cats". Take it down and shake it and it emits a set of bird-like twitterings, miaows, someone calling "Here kitty kitty"... Cool or what! And it's reduced to half price, now only 2 pounds 50 pence. Obviously the little voice that says "Hold on John, supermarkets aren't charities, why is it half price?" was on strike that day along with the voice that reminds you the the house is full of cat toys already and still the only thing they can be relied on to actually play with is the zero-cost rolled up ball of foil off of the choccy bars. So muggins takes it to the checkout, where the checkout operator is somewhat surprised as it starts to miaow as he scans it (there doesn't appear to be any way to turn it off).
Back home I throw it to the masters, expecting them to show total disdain. Disdain is emphatically not forthcoming. Instead they take off in alarm bordering on terror, even worse that when faced with the evil kitty eating monster (a.k.a. the vacuum cleaner). I try leaving it on the bed and eventually Rhia cautiously approaches it, taking great care not to activate it (I may be a wuss, but I'm not stupid you know).
So now it's banished to the kitchen, where the cats don't go. I can see I'm going to end up putting it out with the rubbish. And, if I still can't find any way to turn it off, I just know it's going to go off when the dustmen pick the bags up, someone's going to be convinced I've put some poor animal in the trash and I'm going to end up with my rubbish turned out in the street and the police around to feel my collar!
Unless I can work out ho how stop it I can't even offer to post it to a UK-based RPCA-er. Not, as anyone in the UK will know, that there's much point trying to post anything here at the moment.
John, servant to their Imperial Siamese Majesties, Rhia and Amy.
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