🐾 Featuring Orwellian cat doors, paranoid surveillance and one very suspicious Authorised Pet
This story is part of The Diary of an Orange Cat — now available as a book and as a complete 24-episode podcast series.
👉 Listen to the podcast:
The Diary of an Orange Cat
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STORY OUTLINE
Weasley receives a new high-tech microchip-reading cat door that designates him as an ‘Authorised Pet.’ He becomes increasingly paranoid about its monitoring capabilities, viewing it as an Orwellian device that will track his movements and potentially allow unauthorised access to his home. His anxiety is compounded by various changes in the house, including furniture rearrangement and a reduction in his dirt-boxes. He refuses to use the cat door, comparing it to Big Brother surveillance and seeking help from his actual big brother, Winston.
BACKGROUND
This story was originally published on my website on 1st December 2023. I had recently moved house, and a friend kindly gave me a SureFlap Pet Door for Weasley. Weasley had never used a cat door before. In our previous home, there wasn’t one—he simply came and went through an open window. Unfortunately, the new high-tech door didn’t go down well. Weasley refused to use it, unsettled by the clicking sound it made when recognising his microchip. I persevered for a while, trying to show him it wasn’t a threat, but in true Weasley fashion, he remained unconvinced. In the end, I had to adapt it to work as a standard cat flap and revert to the old-school open-door policy.
THE REAL CATS
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You can read or listen to The Authorised Pet, plus all the rest of the chapters in The Woes of Weasley – The Diary of an Orange Cat.
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Spotify – The Authorised Pet
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📚 Prefer to read?
You can find the full story, along with all chapters, in The Woes of Weasley – The Diary of an Orange Cat, available in print and eBook on Amazon.
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Oh thank you Weasley, I have just read your thoughtful opinion of your household ‘s new addition to Twinks and Lily who have made it abundantly clear to me that I must never contemplate such a contraption and that I must maintain my current services regarding their access and egress of their property. Both Twinks and Lily hope you gave not been too traumatized
Weasley you are going to have a lot of fun if you involve Winston Peters (aka Winnie) in all of this. Make sure you are prepared for a ginormouse shimmozle!!!!! XOX
Yes, I think he’s realised he’s meowing up the wrong tree there but Big Brother in Weasley’s case really is called Winston Peters!