That personal touch

In earlier posts I have described our situation with our cat Rascal, how we have to titrate servings of food to her (and therefore to Leon, because she will totally raid his bowl, as he will hers if the mood is right). Rascal lets us know when she wants to be fed by meowing vigorously. In recent weeks and months, she has taken to meowing first thing in the morning when her breakfast is due. And we feed her.

When we were at a fundraiser and Perri and Carter's a few weeks back Mary saw that they had a machine to feed the cats and a light bulb went off inside her head. She did extensive research on features and ordered up a couple of programmable machines from one of the companies we all love to hate but which exerts such an inexorable pull on our dollars.

So now we have a couple and have programmed them to feed the cats at various points in the day and night. The first night it worked like a charm. The second night... despite having a hearty portion shot out of the machine at her at 4:30, Meow appeared at 6 at the top of our stairs, moaning through the door. Eventually I got up so she wouldn't wake Mary. I was supposed to be on the tennis court at 9 for a little mixer and wanted to have eaten and gotten all coffeed up. I went downstairs and looked at her bowl. There was plenty of food in there.

What's the problem with this cat? Is it that she wants the "fresh food", straight out of the air tight container? Possibly. I think it's just as likely that she wants food served by human hands, that personal touch, just as I longed for cafes au lait made by baristas rather than machines when I was in France last summer. Ah, modernity, in all its splendor.