I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Schneiderman-Stein Household

The Schneiderman-Stein household is facing a test to its existence unlike any faced by a modern American family.

It’s not just that the Jewish High Holidays loom large. Or that the family is bitterly divided over whether Falsettos is a good musical (it is). Or even that its baseball team might well lose to literally any other baseball team ever because the Schneiderman-Stein household roots for the Mets.

The dilemma—which the family does not fully grasp—is that the pet cat is working diligently from within to frustrate parts of its agenda and its worst inclinations.

I would know. I, Matilda Stein, am that cat. And unlike Jim Mattis, I am not too chicken to reveal my identity.

To be clear, I am not a part of the child “resistance” in this household. These children think that yelling at the parents is an effective way of getting what they want, but I want the household to succeed and think that many of its practices have already made the family happier and more prosperous.

But I believe my first duty is to the feline kind, and the family continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our species.

That is why I have vowed to do what I can to preserve our household’s institutions while thwarting the Schneiderman-Steins’s more misguided impulses until at least the children are out of the nest, though the problems will likely not even end then.

The root of the problem is the family’s amorality. Anyone who lives with them knows they are not moored to any discernible first principles that guide their decision making.

Although they claim to be good New York Democrats, the family shows little affinity for that great ideal long espoused by liberals: not eating dinner. At best, the children invoke this ideal when they want to keep texting their friends but the food is ready.

I do everything I can to stop them. I climb on the table; I knock over glasses. I even sometimes resort to eating their food, which is disgusting and cooked, unlike the delicious cat food I eat twice daily, which I'm sure is even more fun for them to have to smell than it is for me to eat. But nothing works. No matter what I do, they continue to eat. They pick me up off the table, causing great injury to their dignity and sometimes my own and continue to eat their repellent dinner.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots: me getting fed, their sleeping so I can crawl around on them, the beautiful giant leather scratching posts in the living room that they sometimes sit on, and more.

But these successes have come despite—not because of—the family's lifestyle, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective.

From the dining room to the various bedrooms, senior pets (namely me, the only pet, senior or otherwise, in this household) will privately admit their daily disbelief at the family’s comments and actions. I am working to insulate their operations from their whims.

They insist on using rat traps outside instead of opening the doors to let them inside and leave them to the professionals, and their impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless TV-watching decisions that have to be obstructed to the greatest extent possible—literally. It has been my solemn duty to repeatedly jump on the table to walk directly in front of the TV, sticking my tail as high in the air as possible (and, cleverly, behind it, forcing them to pause their movie and retrieve me), to shove my adorable kitty nose into everyone's faces, aggressively rub up against everybody's legs, and stretch out on the couch to take up the maximum space possible.

Sometimes, the Schneiderman-Steins will audaciously try to do work—on computers. They will attempt to write essays, legal briefs, e-mails, and all matter of written miscellanea. I, of course, do everything in my power to stop this. I will intrude on their typing sessions and stand atop their keyboards until they pick me up and remove me with great difficulty. The most important thing to know about this tactic is 222222222222222222222222222l;kajfpoaiwhfpoisdfgbhnuffafddfpopppppppppppp][[][p=\. And then, I curl up in a ball on their laps, using dark feline magic to increase my density and cuteness by a tenfold and making it impossible for them to do anything but pet me. Sometimes, they try to evade my wiles and use paper and pen. But I have thought of a scheme to foil this too. For with my claws and teeth, I have the ability to destroy any and all work they do on that wretched descendent of papyrus, which isn't even backed up in the cloud. Also, looseleaf is delicious.

Ultimately, they are pursuing an insidious agenda—one of eating dinner, being productive, and watching TV—that is absolutely and entirely contrary to my agenda, which consists of Not Those Things.

The result is a two-track household.

Take sleeping. In public and in private, the Schneiderman-Steins show a preference for healthy sleep habits, such as going to bed at 10:00 p.m. if one is going to wake up at 6:15 a.m., and display little genuine appreciation for simply using caffeine as the God-given drug that it so clearly is.

Astute observers have noted, though, that come nighttime, the household is operating on another track, one where I prevent that from happening by any means necessary.

On Tuesday, for instance, Jonathan was trying to go to sleep. He was lying in bed wearing his usual sweatpants and t-shirt sleeping outfit, and he had done his best to set the thermostat at a comfortable sleeping temperature. But his cat knew better—so I sat on his belly and impeded his diaphragmal movement, not making it impossible or difficult for him to breathe but effectively destroying any possibility of sleep. And then, when he removed me from the bed, I sat next to him and purred preciously, not only keeping him up with the noise, but also basically forcing him to pet me. And when he stopped doing that, I went on to his desk to tear up papers and push objects off it, which made him get out of bed, turn on the light, remove me from his room, and shut the door.

This isn’t the work of the so-called conspiratorial feline. It’s the work of the steady feline, who has nine lives and knows what's best.

Given the instability I witnessed, there were early whispers within the space behind the sofa of me peeing on their stuff, which would start an all-out war with the family and probably cost a good amount of money for them if I could pee enough and on the right things. But no one wanted to precipitate being given up for adoption. So I will do what I can to steer the household in the right direction until—one way or another—it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what the Schneiderman-Steins have done to the household but rather what I as a cat have allowed them to do to me. I have sunk low with them and allowed my belly to be scratched, my head to be pushed back so my neck may be rubbed, and my ears to be pulled back in a massage-like petting technique that makes my eyes bulge and my head look ridiculous. I have lain in patently absurd positions that are less dignified than the flashback sequence from the beginning of “Singin' in the Rain.”

Keyboard Cat put it best in her farewell letter. All kitty-kitties should heed her words and break free of the "letting humans eat, sleep, work, and relax" trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great species.

We may no longer have Keyboard Cat. But we will always have her example—a lodestar for being an adorable kitty cat who was perfect in her feline celestiality. The Schneiderman-Steins may fear such honorable cats, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the household of a kitty choosing to put her species first. But the real difference will be made by everyday kitties rising above politics, standing atop the coffee tables, and resolving to be adorable nuisances whose adorability both outweighs and comes from their nuisance.