Last Updated on April 20, 2026 by admin
Sarah scheduled a plumber to replace a corroded copper line under her kitchen on a Tuesday morning.
Meatball, her 14-pound orange cat, had other plans.
What follows is the ~90-minute text thread between Sarah and Mike, the plumber, during the time he was legally on the clock in her house and unable to do the job he was paid to do.
The thread
10:03 AM — Mike: Here! Buzzing now 🔧
10:03 AM — Sarah: Door’s open, come on in
10:07 AM — Mike: Uhhhh
10:07 AM — Mike: There’s a cat.
10:08 AM — Sarah: Oh that’s Meatball, he’s friendly
10:09 AM — Mike: He’s in the crawlspace
10:09 AM — Mike: On top of the pipe I’m supposed to replace
10:11 AM — Mike: He looks at me like I’m the one in HIS house
10:11 AM — Mike: I am not saying he’s wrong
10:15 AM — Sarah: Can you work around him?
10:16 AM — Mike: Sarah I signed up to fix pipes
10:17 AM — Mike: Not to negotiate with a 14 lb orange cat
10:28 AM — Sarah: He won’t come out. Try bribing him with lunch meat
10:28 AM — Mike: I didn’t bring lunch meat
10:29 AM — Mike: I brought a wrench
10:33 AM — Sarah: Treats??
10:33 AM — Mike: I BROUGHT A WRENCH
10:41 AM — Mike: Sarah
10:41 AM — Mike: We are going to have to reschedule
10:43 AM — Mike: He’s purring now. I’m not the enemy anymore. But I also cannot get to the pipe.
10:50 AM — Mike: I’m going to my truck to eat my lunch
10:51 AM — Mike: I’ll be back in 45 minutes
10:51 AM — Mike: Please have lunch meat
10:51 AM — Sarah: On it
Mike returned at 11:36 AM with a turkey sandwich from the Sheetz on Route 24. Sarah met him at the door holding one slice of the deli turkey she’d walked to the corner store to buy.
Meatball ate the turkey. Meatball left the pipe. Mike had 38 uninterrupted minutes to work before the orange cat came back to supervise.
The pipe got fixed. Mike billed the normal hourly rate, no hazard pay. Meatball watched the repair from three feet away, tail flicking, because as far as he was concerned he had personally approved this vendor.
Why cats do this
Meatball wasn’t being difficult. He was doing what cats do when a stranger arrives with unfamiliar tools and starts making unusual sounds in a quiet corner of their house: he showed up to verify.
Cats claim vertical high ground when assessing threats. A pipe running along the top of a crawlspace is, in cat logic, the best position in the room — close enough to see what’s happening, high enough to be out of reach, and inaccessible enough that a 6-foot human in coveralls can’t easily remove him.
The pipe wasn’t the point. The pipe was the stage. The orange cat was the audience member who had climbed onto the stage to inspect the script.
There’s also a specific thing cats do with unfamiliar humans: purring while refusing to move. That’s not contradictory. A purr at close range is a cat signaling that nobody present is in immediate danger — including the cat, which means the cat is not planning to leave. Purring is a stay signal as often as it’s a contentment signal.
Mike rescheduled twice more in the three weeks that followed, for unrelated reasons. By the third visit, Meatball walked up to him at the door, head-butted his work boots, and then stayed out of the crawlspace the whole appointment.
The cat had completed his vendor review. Mike was approved. 🐾