My Cats Have Unionized Against Cheap Food, and I May Need a Second Mortgage

I would like to begin by saying that I have cat food in this house.

Perfectly respectable cat food.

There are currently six unopened cans of it in my pantry. They cost approximately sixty cents each. They are presumably made for cats. The label certainly suggests that cats are the intended consumer.

My cats have reviewed the product.

Their official response was:

Fuck you.

Apparently We Are an Inaba Household Now

Somewhere along the way, I made a catastrophic parenting error and introduced my four cats to INABA Churu.

If you’ve never seen Churu, imagine somebody took chicken or tuna, liquefied it, and packaged the resulting substance in a little tube.

It looks absolutely fucking vile.

More specifically, it looks like ass chili from Indian food in my grandbaby’s diaper.

My cats would sell me for it.

They also get INABA pâté and Popups because apparently once you enter this tax bracket of feline cuisine, there is no returning to civilian cat food.

I tried.

Remember those six sixty-cent cans?

The cats said Friskies, bitch, tf?

And that was the end of negotiations.

I Can’t Even Feed Them Like Normal Churu Cats

You’ve probably seen the cute videos.

A human holds a Churu tube. A sweet little kitty delicately licks from the end while the human squeezes.

Awwww. ❤️

That shit cannot happen in my house.

I have four cats and two hands.

If I attempt direct-from-the-tube Churu distribution, what follows is less adorable bonding experience and more Black Friday at Walmart circa 2007.

Somebody is getting knocked the fuck out.

So we have a system.

I squeeze the Churu into four individual little saucers.

I line the saucers up along the bar.

And then—and I need you to understand that I’m completely serious—my cats get into their barstools.

They sit at the bar.

And eat their Churu from individual saucers.

TWICE A FUCKING DAY.

I don’t own cats.

I operate a tiny feline gastropub.

They Don’t Love Me. I Am The Help.

For years I believed my cats loved me.

They follow me around. They appear when I enter a room. They gaze upon me with what I had interpreted as affection and possibly even reverence.

This was only mild toleration until I discovered the Churu.

I now understand.

The Churu.

That’s it.

I am not Mother.

I am not Beloved Human.

I am the catering staff.

If I disappeared tomorrow but someone explained to them that Marcelo knew where the Churu was stored, I suspect the grieving process would last approximately eleven minutes.

Maybe less if dinner was late.

Let’s Discuss the Fucking Economics

There are four cats.

They eat this shit twice a day.

Then there are the pâtés. And the Popups.

And because my cats apparently have the culinary standards of tiny furry oligarchs, INABA has me completely by the financial balls.

Recently I received one of those promotional emails offering 20% off a 50-pack case of Churu.

Twenty percent off!

My first reaction should have been:

What a nice discount.

Instead it was:

OH THANK GOD.

That’s when you know you’ve lost control of your household.

A fifty-pack isn’t even an impressive quantity anymore. It’s inventory.

I need purchasing forecasts.

I need quarterly projections.

I need to start buying Churu futures.

At this rate my mortgage lender is eventually going to ask why I’m refinancing the house, and I’m going to have to sit across from a grown adult and say:

“Jasper prefers tuna.”

So, INABA, If You’re Reading This…

Hello. 😇

I have four extremely spoiled cats who have rejected perfectly acceptable sixty-cent cat food because you people apparently discovered feline crack and put it in a tube.

They consume your Churu.

They consume your pâté.

They consume your Popups.

They have barstools.

BARSTOOLS.

I have clearly demonstrated poor judgment and excellent brand loyalty.

I review games and occasionally developers send me free game keys because I write about their shit.

So I figure it’s worth taking my shot here too.

INABA, I would like to discuss sponsorship opportunities.

I’m extremely flexible.

Free products?

Wonderful.

A lifetime Churu supply?

Even better.

A small refrigerated truck arriving monthly?

Let’s not rule anything out.

Because I love these four spoiled little motherfuckers, and apparently that means I’m going to continue serving them expensive meat pudding on individual saucers at the bar twice a day while six cans of perfectly good cat food sit abandoned in the pantry.

Those cans aren’t food anymore.

They’re a monument.

A $3.60 reminder of the day I briefly forgot who actually runs this fucking house.

And if INABA doesn’t answer?

Fine.

I’ll be at the bank.

“Yes, hello. I’d like to inquire about a home-equity loan. It’s for the cats.” 😹🐈‍⬛💸❤️