My human is so bad at domestic type stuff that she needs a housekeeping service to come in and clean. The only problem is she can’t talk to the women because — in spite of being half Hispanic herself — she can only speak about half a dozen words of Spanish. This does not surprise me, since she doesn’t speak Cat very well, either. When the housekeepers showed up this morning and one of them started to leave the door open, all my human knew to say was, “No, uh, gatos…” “Ah, tienes gatos,” the woman nodded and made sure to close the door. At least one of them was on the ball.
Needless to say, this was an imposition on us cats. It put a serious dent in our naptime — I mean, how can you sleep when you have no idea when you’re going to be rudely disturbed by humans with noisy contraptions and smelly liquids? But they weren’t around for too long, and they did leave the house reasonably clean. There wasn’t much they could do with my human’s office, however, except straighten up the mess on her desk. And considering the sheer amount of volume there, even that was difficult to accomplish.
One thing I am not thrilled about is that they found the “festive” jingle bell collar that my human bought before Christmas and promptly misplaced. Fortunately, Christmas was two months ago — with any luck my human will put it away for next year… and forget about it again.
The one big mistake the housekeepers almost made was when they tried to throw away one of my boxes! But my human stopped them in time. Clearly they do not tiene gatos, or they would know better than to throw away boxes unthinkingly.
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
Gotta keep a “hawk” eye on them folks…
Oh, I’ve heard terrible stories about “house keepers” and “cleaning people!” When Mom lived with her parents and the first cat, there was an evil cleaning lady who came every other Toesday to terrorize the cat. Mom would get home and search for what cupboard or room the cat was trapped in THIS time. The cleaning lady left closets and the garage open while she cleaned, then closed the doors WITHOUT checking for the cat! He was a tiny thing at 17 pounds (sarcasm) and so easy to miss! Obviously, she no tiene gatos, tambien.
Oddly enough, Mom’s mom used to teach Spanish to bean kids. The first cat had a clear mustache on his face, so she named him Bigotes (big-oat-es), which is Spanish for mustache!
Purrs and sympathy,
Nina
PS Under the bed is usually a good place to avoid cleaning.
Oh man I can’t imagine trying to get my nap on…and then smelling something I never smelled and seeing a stranger…RUNNNNN
Why can’t humans just be happy to live in mess? Mess is good, it gives more places to hide. And dust bunnies are fun to run after!
Well, it’s a good thing that the Hispanic half of your human knew how to tell the housekeeping about you gatos so the doors are closed and the boxes are safe!
Poor dude. (oh- and i suggest you push the festive collar under the refrigidator. They never finds it there!)
I took four years of Spanish in school, and the only Espanol that stuck with me is the stuff of Speedy Gonzales. I believe I learned that the word “gato” is cat because of him, too.
Housecleaners! How heavenly!