As I am writing this, our youngest cat, Mango, is sitting beside me, staring. Every once in a while, she will let loose with a rather pathetic “meow” that sounds like she’s had one-too-many beers the night before, and she continually purrs, as if she’s extraordinarily happy to be in my company, but with a tinge of sadness that I am not giving her more attention. In this instance, she is talking to me, telling me she wants in my lap, but this infernal machine is in the way.

I have learned to communicate with our cats. This is not a two-way communication, though. This is me understanding cat-cues and what they are saying to me. Their main method of communication is The Stare. When our cats want something, especially Mango, they will STARE at it.

Mango likes to play. She especially loves it when I break out a stick with a feather on the end. She will bite at it and scratch at it. She will roll on her back and desperately swipe at it in an attempt to DESTROY it. She will run around in circles like a dog chasing its tale until she gets tired and flops over, purring like a freight train and breathing heavily. But even then, she will not stop pawing at The Stick because she really wants to kill it.