Humans are high maintenance.

Jasper and I have been pretty busy trying to keep the humans out of trouble. As I've mentioned before, they have some serious flaws. Two of those flaws caused some serious problems at the last mini-house: their inability to listen to anyone except other humans, and their almost complete lack of a sense of smell.

While I do like it when the humans are sick, I want them to be mildly sick. Ideally, they'll be just sick enough to stay home, to take long naps, and to spend a lot of time paying attention to me. Sicker than that, and things get downright inconvenient.

She got sicker than I like at the last mini-house. She's had this illness before. It's the one where she holds cold things to her head, makes noises while she sleeps, won't wake up to give me pets no matter how many times I tap her face, and staggers off to throw up hairballs. Human hairballs smell bad and sound quite uncomfortable.

Worst of all, she caused the whole thing herself! The humans like to rub smell sticks under their arms. Apparently, the old one ran out. She bought a new one with a different smell. It was full of the bad kind of fake flower smells.

Of course she couldn't smell it, but Jasper and I knew right away that this was a bad smell for her. I sent him in to watery eyes and sneezes at her, but she didn't pay any attention to us.

That's normal but frustrating. It was even more frustrating to see that she could tell something was wrong, but didn't know what it was. She kept wrinkling up her nose every time she moved her arms.

This is not the first time strong smells have made her sick. They don't get her right away, usually, so we had another chance when the humans got back that night. Jasper and I both made stinky faces and watery eyes at her before bed to tell her that she needed to go douse herself with water. Humans do that sometimes. Although I wouldn't recommend it for a more civilized creature, it does help to keep down the worst of the human smells.

She didn't listen to this request either. She just went to bed. So she woke up sick, and we had a bad day. Jasper and I took turns curling up with her and patting her face whenever she made too many noises while she was sleeping. Sometimes, it was so bad that we both had to give her snuggles at once.

She was mostly better the next day. But she didn't listen to our warnings then either, so she put on the smell stick. I could tell she was wondering why she felt so bad, but humans are just oblivious. I guess they'd rather suffer than listen to anybody else.

On the THIRD day, she finally figured it out. We left the very next day, so I didn't even get to enjoy sleeping under the big bed in that mini-house.

At least this mini-house also has a bed I can sleep under. I haven't been able to enjoy it yet, since she's been out of sorts until now. I'm glad she's better. I'm looking forward to spending the whole day and night under the bed tomorrow.

It's about time.