By: Melissa Zhao

Yawn. I stretch out my arms as I stir and slowly push myself up into a sitting position. The sky is still painted with light streaks of pink, orange, and mostly dark blue, which means it’s around 6 o’clock in the morning. I sigh, after all, that means breakfast is still 2 hours away. How could I ever last so long?

I caress my grumbling tummy, meowing, “I know, we’ll get you some food later on, don’t worry about it,” and start doing my morning groom. Meanwhile, I mutter, “Lazy humans can’t wake up early enough. Who would want to sleep until 8 o’clock? Much better to wake up at 6 in the morning and get ready for the day.” Grumbling to myself, I lick myself until my fur is smoothed out.

Breakfast time is the most exciting time of the day, because what do I do for the rest of my day? Sleep, eat dry cat chow that, as my owner says, is ‘organic and good for cats,’ and roll around. My day summarized in a sentence. To humans, my life is ‘easy’ and ‘fun.’ Yay! Who wouldn’t want to spend a day waiting and eating flavorless food? If only I could go outside and explore, have fun, and be free. I could hunt for my own food and choose when to eat and play all day long.

If I was a human, I would make the most of everything. Hey, maybe I’d even enjoy school! I hear my human complaining about school and work all the time, even though it sounds waaay better than eating cat food – yuck! – and rolling around the carpet. Why humans always complain about having such a busy life? I don’t know. Hello? I’m dying from boredom here every single day! Oh, an extra bonus: good food.

Finally – finally – 2 hours later, after long hours of rolling around, trying to sleep, licking my whiskers, and hunting for food in the kitchen unsuccessfully, my human groans and wakes up. “Yes! Finally!” I bound up to my human whose name is Li-Li-a. Yikes. Who’d want a name like that? I’m much happier with my name: ‘Snow.’ I jump on her bed and tell her, “You’re awake! I woke up at 6. What is it with you and sleeping? You need to feed me and feed yourself, too. You should really hurry up. I’m waiting for you! How could you let the sun beat you to waking up?!”

To Lilia, my rants must have sounded like a cute meow of good morning, because she responded by ruffling up my perfectly licked hair – oh god, I spent so long on that!! – and replying, “Good morning to you too, cutie.” Blech. First off, never – I mean never – call me cutie. And next, I’m hungry! Hurry up your morning routine, human. You take so long.

After another 30 minutes of showering, brushing her teeth, brushing her hair, and washing her face, Lilia finally gets breakfast ready for me. A small box of delicious, juicy, sardines. A special treat I get once a week for breakfast! It makes me almost forget about how long Lilia took for her morning routine. Almost. After scarfing down my breakfast, I sigh. Getting ready for another boring day? Check. Wishing I could go out to explore the world? Check.

Time for complete, utter, boredom.