Did you check the stove?

    

Stove, water heater, garage door opener…all done.

    

Lights?

    

Yeah, light timer is hooked up.

    

I feel like we forgot something…

    

It’s fine, we took care of everything. If we think of something we can always call the neighbors and have them take care of it.

    

What about the, uh, cat thing?

    

The CatWatch 3000?

    

That’s a really stupid name, I can’t believe YOU bought a CatWatch.

    

It’ll be fun. I can write about it when we get back. It becomes a business expense.

    

Speaking of which, why haven’t we heard from it?

    

Has it been long enough? We haven’t been driving that long, what, two hours now?

    

Still…

    

Relax. I think it takes a while to establish baseline readings. What did the manual say…oh, right, “Acquiring initial average statistical norms of physiological indices.”

    

What a crock.

    

Heh, heh. Yeah.

    

bzzzz…

    

See there it is now, Catwatch 3000 incoming SMS message. Here, you read it.

"CW3K: your cat TINK has been established as HAPPY."

What does that mean? Happy?

    

She’s probably napping in the furnace room.

    

Wouldn’t that be content or sleeping?

    

I don’t know maybe it takes this thing a while to home in on, uh, you know the whole physiological thing.

    

bzzzz…

    

That was quick. Lessee...

"CW3K: your cat TINK has been established as BOUYANT."

    

She’s become a floatation device…

    

That’s not funny…

    

bzzzz…
bzzzz…

    

What the?

    

bzzzz…
bzzzz…
bzzzz…

    

Crap, they are coming in faster than I can read.

"CW3K: your cat TINK has been established as JUBILANT."

    

At least the cat is having fun.

    

bzzzz…
bzzzz…

"EXULTANT" "BLISSFUL" "CHIPPER"

How happy can a cat get?

    

bzzzz…bzzzz…bzzzz…bzzzz…

    

Turn it off!!!

    

bzzzz…
bzzzz…

I’m

bzzzz…
bzzzz…

trying!

bzzzz…
bzzzz…
bzzzz…
bzzzz…

<click>

    

Wow…

    

That went as well as can be expected.

    

What was that all about?

    

I don’t know. It’s only supposed to sent notifications on mood changes.

    

Sounds like they went a little overboard on happy.

    

You don’t think...

    

That she was playing with the CatWatch 3000 sensor? Of course she was.

    

Well, we can’t use the phone on this trip.

    

Let’s call the neighbors from the hotel tonight, see if they’ll unplug it.

    

Yep.

    

    

    

    

Did you shut off the water pump?