How can a cat be cute and annoying at the same time?

Submitted into Contest #38 in response to: Write a story about someone who is working from home and constantly getting distracted by their pet. ... view prompt

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  He sat down at his desk, setting his coffee down next to his computer. 

John looked at his watch, five minutes until the meeting. He turned on his computer and waited. John heard a noise from behind him and turned around. His tabby cat was rubbing on the lamp in the corner of the room. 

The orange cat realized that he was looking at her and sauntered over to him and jumped on his lap. 

“Skye, I have a meeting in a bit.” John said as he scratched his cat’s head. She started purring. 

John sighed. “Fine. Don’t distract me though.”

He heard a noise from his computer and looked up, and answered the call. 

The meeting lasted for about an hour, they were discussing how the company he worked at was doing during this pandemic. 

Skye had behaved well, for the most part. There were a few times that she meowed to get John’s attention and wouldn’t stop until he started petting her again. At one point she had gotten up and tried to drink from his coffee, luckily John stopped her in time and put her back in his lap. 

John picked Skye up and set her down, standing up and stretching. He grabbed his empty coffee cup and walked to his kitchen, Skye following him. After cleaning his cup and putting it away, he walked back into his office, and sat down again. He had a lot of work to do.

After a few minutes, he felt something on his leg. He looked down and saw Skye was scratching his leg. 

“What do you want?” He asked her kindly. 

Skye meowed. 

“I already fed you today.” John responded, recognizing her meow as a hungry one. 

Skye meowed again.

John shook his head and turned back to his computer, trying to ignore her as she meowed for the third time.

After about one minute of this, John gave up. 

He looked at Skye and sighed. “Fine. But you won’t get a lot.” 

He stood up and walked back into his kitchen. He poured a bit of food into Skye’s food bowl and went back into his office. 

John was able to work in peace again. 

After about five minutes his lamp on his desk started to flicker, he looked at it. He then bent down to look underneath the desk, and saw Skye playing with the cord of his lamp. 

“Hey, stop. You’re gonna break it.” John got on his knees and crawled towards the tabby. He grabbed her and crawled back out, he stood up and set her down on his desk. He bent down and fixed the cord. 

He stood up and looked at Skye. She was licking her paw, feigning innocence. Stupid cat. He thought and smiled a bit. 

 He sat back down and got back to work for what felt like the fifth time. John checked his emails and replied to a few of them, he edited a few documents his coworkers sent to him and he also got a few assignments from his boss. 

Just as he was about to start one of the said assignments, he felt something jump onto his lap. It was Skye. He paused what he was doing and scratched her ears. Skye perked up and pushed herself closer to John. He laughed and picked her up to cradle her against his chest. She tucked her head into his neck, he could hear her purring. 

After a few minutes of that, he set the cat on his lap and tried to continue his work. Key word: tried. John put his hands back on the keyboard and mouse. After approximately three seconds, John felt a paw on his arm and looked down to the owner of the paw. Skye was staring at him with a look of betrayal in her eyes. She meowed. 

“I just pet you.” John sighed, “Why do you want so much attention today?” But he still started to pet her again. Skye let out a happy meow. 

After a bit, John got back to work again with no trouble. Or so he thought. Around one minute later, Skye jumped up onto his desk, and laid down on his keyboard. His hands that were typing, also getting trapped under his furry companion. More like furry annoyance. John thought. 

John sighed and wiggled his fingers, trying to annoy Skye into getting off. Skye shifted her weight to be more on top of his hands and looked at him as if to say try getting me off now. John sighed and tried to slowly pull a hand out from underneath her. 

Using that one hand, he pulled his other hand out. Now, with her full weight on the keyboard, Skye was unknowingly spamming the document John was working on with a bunch of random letters. 

John sighed and picked Skye up for around the tenth time that day. He set her down on the ground and pointed a finger at her. 

“If you keep distracting me, I’ll have to shut you out of my office.” 

Skye rubbed against his leg. John sighed and bent down to start petting her. 

After a few minutes, John stood up and sat back down at his desk, ignoring the dejected look from Skye. He then deleted all of the stuff his cat had spammed earlier. 

Just as he was about to start typing again, he felt something scratching his leg. John sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He realized he had been repeating a lot of things that day. 

John bent down and picked Skye up, walking towards the door of his office. He set her down and said “I warned you.” He closed the door and walked back to his chair. 

John got back to work. But after a few minutes he made the mistake of looking at the door. Skye was still sitting there, her silence speaking volumes. John shook his head and looked away. 

After another few minutes, he looked towards the door again, to check if Skye was still there. She was gone. John smiled, glad that he was finally able to focus on his work. Finally. John exhaled and opened the next assignment he had to do. 

Of course, that’s when he heard a crash from the kitchen. John sighed, and he knew that he wouldn’t be getting any more work done that day.   




 


April 23, 2020 04:38

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