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She hugged us close, and we both hugged her right back. We’d almost lost our human to Solange’s shenanigans, and it had made me realize just how lucky we were to have Odelia—and the rest of her family, too. There might not be millions of them, like Norm’s impressive swarm, but when it comes to family I guess it’s not about the quantity, but about the quality. And I can proudly say we had the best family any cat could hope for.

Suddenly Odelia stared at me with a frown.“I’m sorry,” she said. “But do I know you?”

I looked up at her in alarm, and so did Dooley.

“Oh, no!” my friend said. “Max, it’s happening again!”

But then Odelia’s face broke into a wide grin. “Just kidding, you guys!”

Yep. The best human in the world.

And she’s funny, too!

Or at least she thinks she is.

29. PURRFECT FITNESS

Chapter 1

There’s a story someone once told me about not judging a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. And I remember thinking at the time that this story doesn’t really apply to cats, since we don’t wear shoes. Still, the gist of the thing has always stuck with me, and when I now watched Odelia and Chase sweating and grunting their way through some sort of aerobics routine, I was reminded of this neat little aphorism or idiom.

It’s hard for a cat to feel a lot of sympathy when humans put themselves through the wringer like this. I mean, no cat would willingly subject themselves to such silliness, but then that’s humans for you. They must have some sort of masochistic streak, and like to torment themselves for no good reason whatsoever.

The shoes Odelia and Chase were wearing were sneakers, so I tried hard to picture myself wearing those same sneakers and jumping around like a crazy person, losing about a gallon of sweat in the process. Try as I might, though, I simply couldn’t see it.

“What are they doing?” asked Dooley, who’d been observing the scene with the same stupefied expression on his face as no doubt I was wearing on mine.

“It’s called aerobics,” I explained. “Humans do it to stay in shape.”

“What shape? Square or round or…”

“It doesn’t matter as long as it’s slim. Humans like to be slim.”

“It looks extremely painful,” Dooley said, wincing a little as Odelia practiced a high kick that looked very dangerous indeed.

“Humans like to suffer,” I explained.

“So weird,” Dooley said with a shake of the head.

On the television a man was showing our humans how it was done. He was a man with a big curly head of hair, a pink sweat headband and very bright spandex clothes. Behind the man were five women mimicking his every move, just the way Odelia and Chase were, and the music pumping through our living room speakers accompanying the man’s instructions was loud and energetic. It also made my ears bleed.

Well, maybe not literally, but you know what I mean. Cats have a very sensitive sense of hearing, and the noise from the TV was very unpleasant to say the least.

I liked that Odelia wasn’t alone, though. In case she pulled a muscle, her boyfriend could immediately call for a doctor—and she could do the same for him. Also, they say couples who suffer together, stay together, and judging from the pained grimaces on our humans’ sweat-soaked faces, they were suffering a lot, which boded well for their future.

“You would think that after spending so much time with our humans we would understand what they’re up to,” said Dooley. “But the opposite seems to be true. The longer I’m with them, the less I understand them.”

“You certainly have a point, Dooley,” I said, as I felt exactly the same way.

Suddenly the sliding glass door opened and Grandma Muffin walked in. She cast one look at her profusely sweating and grunting granddaughter and boyfriend, shook her head in dismay, and walked out again. Gran doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and whatever she had to tell us could probably wait.

Suddenly the doorbell chimed, and since Odelia nor Chase reacted, I easily slid down from my perch on the couch and ambled over to see who it was.

Cats can’t open doors, unfortunately, but they can take a peek through the letterbox and ascertain the identity of the person making a house call, which is what I did now.

Much to my surprise, the person standing in front of the door was the same person now working up a sweat on our television screen and shouting a good deal as he did.

For a moment I thought I was seeing things, for he looked exactly the same as he did on TV: that same curly head of hair, that same garishly colorful spandex outfit, and the same sneakers. Only the man at the door had a careworn expression on his face while the man on TV looked like he was about to reach his personal peak of pleasure.