I have good news and bad news. I will state the good news first.

I finally have a supply of catnip milk.

So, I met this guy called... Well, we'll just call him F.

Fluffy does not want any human to know his real name.

F is a... shady guy. He deals with catnip.

Well, it is not technically illegal, but not really legal either?

...

What? What do we cats use as currency? Are you an idiot? We use catnip!

...

What do you mean? Yes, we buy catnip with catnip!

...

How? What do you mean, how? We trade small amounts of high-quality catnip for large amounts of low-quality catnip, isn't it obvious? It is like those little brown coins of yours and those little grey coins!

...

They are silver and copper? No, they're grey and brown!

...

What? Yes, we grow catnip! How is that much different from humans farming? You sell what you farm, but we cats farm our currency directly! And it holds value because it is needed! How is that worse than your useless green paper and circles?

...

Catnip looks better than paper!

Now, onto the bad news.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 6:00 AM to get my human to make me breakfast.

My human got up, and, with an exaggerated flourish, served me... rabbit poo. Hardened rabbit poo. It tasted bland, a faint taste of plastic and nothing else. It was disgusting.

...

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What? Of course, I ate it when I thought it might be rabbit poo, why wouldn't I?

Now, imagine this.

You wake up at 6:00 AM, a traumatic experience because you are hungry. Actually, no. It would be a traumatic experience if you were not hungry, too. Nevermind.

You wake up your personal chef, and it makes you a meal.

The meal you got up at 6:00 AM for... It looks like dry, hardened rabbit poo and it smells like it, too.

You taste it, thinking it may be biscuits or something.

It tastes bland, with a faint trace of plastic. A horrible taste.

But you eat it anyway because you are famished.

Did I mention that it makes you thirsty as well?

Your chef, then, in another exaggerated flourish, serves you a dish of water. Not catnip milk, not even milk, water. It is a good thing I have a secret stash of the former.

The worst of it is that your chef cannot even understand you when you complain about the quality of the horrible food. It barks at you all day, never saying anything you can understand except for the words dog, cat, and a few others. It does not know that you can understand those words and you have no way of informing it that you do.

And then your human serves you the same thing again for lunch.

And then your human, again, serves you the same thing again for dinner.

And then it happens again, for two more days.

That's when I had enough of it. I tried some of what my human was eating, and it was...

It was good. Edible.

And my human was keeping the fact that he could actually cook from me.

I ate it all, right in front of my human, glaring at it the entire time.

My human finally got the message.

No, that is not good news. That is bad news. The fact that my human kept the fact that it could cook from me is bad news. Just this morning, the meal I took from it was sizzled, salted strips of pig and yellow stuff that I have identified as chicken eggs. It was delicious.

I am going to go meet fluffy now, I will update again later.

I mean... I am going to go meet F now. I will update again later. You did not see that first one.

* * *

"Fluffy."

"I. What do you need?"

"I need more catnip milk."

"You know the rules."

"Yes. I do know the rules. One leaf of high-quality catnip for a week's supply."

"No. You know what I am talking about, I. That is only for the first time a week. The second time, the price doubles."

"That is not what we agreed to."

"I make the rules. Either you agree to them or not. If you do not, you can buy catnip from someone else."

"Someone else? You know as well as I do that there is no catnip vendor within a couple mile's radius."

"Exactly."

"Why?"

"I want your high-quality catnip, and you want my catnip milk. It is simple."

"You know what I am talking about."

"I happen to need more this week... Just like you."

"So we could exchange on a larger scale."

"1.5 times this week, twice on the next, 2.5 the time after that, increasing every time. Final offer. Do we have a deal?"

I gritted his teeth and hissed, "Fine."