I woke up this morning to see my cat pulling a plug from the wall. A plug.
The plug had a cord, and the cord led all the way up to a foot. My foot.
My plug. My cat was unplugging me from a wall socket.
I looked at my cat, and he said: Oh.
He said: This.
He said: I bet you're wondering about this. And he held up the plug—my plug?—and looked at me.
Yes, he said. I'm betting you are wondering about this.
No, I said. It all makes sense, really. A robot. I'm a robot. I run on electricity. I'm plugged in at night. You plug me in and unplug me because you need me to do things for you.
I go to work five or six days a week. I make money to buy food for you. I clean your litter.
You made me to do all this. You, and cats, made me and people like me to do all the things we do. We care for you. We have jobs. Our jobs are a part of larger economic context that you invented. You invented the economy, and the culture, and the world we live in for the improvement of your standard of living. We are advanced machines who work and live and fight and mate. We make more little versions of us to take care of you and your kind. We are a system. Humanity is a system created for the care of cats. We are cogs in a machine that was made to care for you.
And at night, you plug us in.
Sure, I said. It all makes sense now. You created us to make your lives easier.
He said: Ego. And he laughed at me. Ego, ego, ego. He curled up the cord, and opened a little door in my foot. He put the cord inside my foot. Ego, he said.
You're a heating pad, he said.
