On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I was my normal, happy pre-feast self, with visions of new and even more fattening recipes dancing in my head. Then, BLAM!!!! At 7:35 exactly, I was seized with a massive coughing fit. My eyes filled, my nose filled and I knew I was doomed. 

I’m not one of these people who get daintily sick. I go all in for the experience. Normally, the human body is about 60% water. When I get sick, my ratio goes up to 90% and all I can do is lie around gasping like a beached jellyfish. It’s all pretty miserable, but this time, since I got a head start on the nose blowing on Sunday, I wasn’t actually feeling that terrible by the time Thanksgiving Eve came around. However, I was still in a disgusting semi-liquid state and no matter how much you might want to, you just can’t cook in that condition. Nobody wants extra body fluids in the cranberry sauce. 

So on Thanksgiving Eve morning, my husband Dave and I drove to our daughter Catherine’s house. He was conscripted as the chief dishwasher and errand runner. And I was banished to the downstairs bedroom with the two oversized floof-cats, Toby and Watson. The three of us settled down. We were all very interested in the delicious smells coming down to us. From time to time, Catherine would come down with a tray of whatever had just come out of the oven, and we all spent the day eating and sleeping, and reading and sleeping some more. We paused from time to time to complain that our servants, I mean our family, were being slow in bringing us more treats. Then we’d all stretch, roll over and go back to sleep. 

Naturally, I fretted that the cooking was not being done the way I would have done it. I shared my worries with the cats who understood completely. They told me that nothing at their house was ever done properly and that they, like me that day, had been pushed to the brink of starvation many times. Also, would I move over? Then we all yelled upstairs for more treats. The younger human came down with some coconut pie filling for us to try. The three of us judged it and her as adequate for now. 

When evening came, I was feeling much better, although exhausted by my efforts at recovery. Dave and Catherine came down covered with flour and claimed that they had worked hard too and were pooped. We looked at them with disdain and demanded that dinner be brought down to us at once. They rolled their eyes and trudged up the stairs.

“I think being sick is bad for her,” Dave muttered.

“It’s bad for US!” Catherine groaned.

“I heard that!” I yelled “Don’t you forget that, cough cough, I’m a joy to have around! And don’t forget the mustard!”

“It’s so hard to get decent servants these days,” Watson said. 

“I see what you mean,” I said. 

Thanksgiving morning dawned bright and beautiful. Dave and Catherine greeted me warmly with steely glares and informed me that I was now officially cured and that there was lots to do. I replied that I was going to spend the rest of my life as a cat and that I would soon need my morning massage. They told me that only humans were given plates to pile high at dinner time and that cats couldn’t eat toll-house pie because chocolate is bad for them. With a deep sigh, I shouldered the burden of being human. Later, covered with crumbs and browsing Christmas catalogs while petting the cats, I reflected that being human is tough but has its compensations.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s Student Success Center.