Two Little Kittens

Once upon a time, there were two little kittens named Mittens and Bertha. Mittens was the cutest kitten in all the world, a regal Bengal cat with big green eyes, black and gold stripes across her face and body, and tiny ears poking out from the side of her head.

Her friend, Bertha, was objectively cute, just not as cute as Mittens. In fact, some people said she looked more mouse than kitten, with her basic white fur and pink nose. Either way, the two kittens were fast friends and sat outside a local Denny’s every day meowing at each other.

“Meow Meow!”

“Meow Meow Meow,” and so on and so forth.

Soon, word spread of these two kittens, a modern-day Abbott and Costello of sorts hanging outside the local Denny’s. People came from far and wide to see the two kittens seemingly engaged in a kitten conversation. The Denny’s, enjoying the free press, played up the two kittens by encouraging patrons to buy little snacks to feed them, creatively labeled, “Denny’s Sardines” by some ad wizard. Upon leaving, a patron could purchase three sardines for two dollars, with a portion of the proceeds generously going towards the store manager’s BMW 3 Series lease.

Like in all cases, the introduction of money, or in this case, sardines, changed the equation for Mittens and Bertha. Mittens quickly realized if she acted especially cute, people would give her more sardines. Soon, she developed a little solo routine, including rolling over on her back and pretending to play with some imaginary string, cleaning the side of her face with a paw and the coupe de grace, the “Big Eye Meow.” A person might have the fortitude to withstand the string routine. They perhaps might be able to ignore the face cleaning, but no one, not even the alleged still living dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un (who also loved Denny’s “Moon Over My Hammy”), could resist the “Big Eye Meow.”

This left Bertha in a bit of a pickle. What was once an equal split of the revenue, or in this case, the sardines — was now on a good day a less than equal 70–30 split. This was utterly unacceptable to Bertha, and to the eyes of U.N. Monitors if they so happened to monitor the allocation of sardine resources amongst two kittens sitting in front of a Denny’s. (which they don’t, so as an aside, you should probably email former President Jimmy Carter and tell him to get on that — PresidentJimmyCarter69@aol.com)

The only thing Bertha could do was try and compete. Unfortunately, she was not as creative as Mittens. Bertha would attempt to bounce on her toes, and little kids would jump back in fear. She would clean her butt with her tongue, and people would gag at her slurping sounds. Her own main event, the go-to move if you will, was to make her eyes really big and then hock up a hairball. Folks who just ate a delicious Grand Slam breakfast had no desire to witness a hairball launched like a projectile towards their feet, and thus did not share their sardines with Bertha.

This made Bertha cry.

To make matters even worse, to really turn that Phillips screwdriver into the metaphorical nail was Mittens seemingly benevolent nature. She would witness Bertha’s rejections and come crawling over like an army man in World War I to console her, causing her loyal audience, now known as “Mittenites,” (not to be confused with the Mennonites), to Ohhhh and Ahhhhh and Awwww. The members of the Mittenites would stroke their coincidental long beards — (again, not Mennonites) and hand over their sardines to Mittens.

This made Bertha mad.

One day, during another fruitful — for Mittens — afternoon session, someone noticed a book of stationery and pencil on the ground near the kittens. At the top of every page, the stationary announced, “From the desk of David Lee Roth…”

The Mittenites, stroking their coincidental long beards and wearing their modest tan clothing attire, laughed at the idea of Mittens writing letters to her loyal followers.

Mittens played to their amusement by strolling over and meowing at the paper as if she were dictating to the soon to be First Prophet of the Mittenites, David Lee Roth.

Of course, eating copious amounts of sardines had left her out of shape and out of breath. The adoring believers didn’t care though, cheering and crying and dancing, tossing more and more sardines at her. One of the faithful, a humble woman named Anke, proclaimed the day to be the greatest of her life. Everything was right in Mittens’ world.

Until out of nowhere, a Kittyhawk came screeching down from the sky, scooping Mittens up in her sharp beak and taking her away to be eaten alive. Horrified, the Mittenites dropped their sardines and fled to their horse and buggies, since word had spread that Mittens frowned upon the use of motor vehicles. The world had grown suddenly silent, with only the NEIGGHHHH from a departing horse filling the void.

This made Bertha very happy!

Of course, Denny’s was crushed! They abandoned their sardine promotion, the ad wizard was fired, and life returned to normal. Bertha spent her remaining years sitting outside the Denny’s, receiving the random handout, hacking up the random hairball, and content with the knowledge she was nobody’s clown.

The End.