Last Updated on June 21, 2026 by admin
Greta is a tortoiseshell. She is eleven, she is not impressed, and she has agreed — again — to answer letters from the humans of the internet. The mailbag is open. Please do not reply-all.
Dear Greta: Every single morning at 4:50, my cat sprints the length of the hallway, knocks one specific item off one specific shelf, and then goes to sleep. Why?
Your cat is not knocking the item off the shelf. Your cat is filing a report. The 4:50 sprint is the commute. The shelf is the desk. The item — and it is always the same item, you’ll notice — is the day’s paperwork, stamped and dropped into the only inbox that gets read in that house: the floor. You are not being woken up. You are being copied on the memo. — G.
Dear Greta: My cat scratches the exact same corner of the exact same couch, even though we bought three scratching posts. Is she broken?
She is not broken. She is loyal. A scratching post is a rental. That corner of the couch is property she has owned outright since the day she moved in, and she is maintaining it the way your grandfather maintained a fence he didn’t technically need anymore — out of principle, and because the act of maintaining it is the point. The three posts you bought are very thoughtful. She has read the brochures and declined. — G.
Dear Greta: When I close a door — any door — my cat sits outside it and cries like I’ve abandoned him forever. The room is a bathroom. I am in there for ninety seconds.
The duration is irrelevant. The door is the issue. A closed door is the single greatest insult in the feline legal code, because it implies the existence of a room your cat does not currently administer. He is not crying because he misses you. He is crying because somewhere, behind a barrier, things are happening without oversight. Open the door. Let him in. Let him look at the towels. He simply needs to confirm the towels are still there. They always are. He is never satisfied. This is the relationship. — G.
That’s the mailbag for this week. Greta reminds you that she is not angry, she is simply keeping records — and that every grievance you have about your cat is, from the other side of the food bowl, a grievance your cat has already forgiven you for.
Mostly. 🐾