I’m Murchyk, a yard cat and a certified expert in windowsills and human weaknesses. Every morning I sit by the first-floor window of Mrs. Olia, because she slices sausage with the generosity of someone negotiating directly with hunger. We’ve had a fair arrangement for ages: I purr beautifully, she says, “Well, aren’t you an artist,” and gives me a little round slice. The system worked better than most human systems I’ve observed from a bench.

But today Mrs. Olia decided to wash the window. She opened the little vent, put a plate of sausage on the windowsill, and went to get a rag. Being a principled creature, I jumped immediately. At that exact moment, her ficus, gloomy for years, finally got its big chance: the pot wobbled, I knocked the plate with my paw, the sausage slid straight onto the floor, and right after it — so did I. Humans call this “oops.” A surprisingly efficient word.

The noise brought Barzyk, the dog from the neighboring yard, because an open window is apparently an official invitation to canine diplomatic disaster. I hissed, Barzyk drooled on the linoleum, Mrs. Olia panicked and waved the rag, and the ficus finally fell — directly into an empty bucket of water. The bucket tipped over, Barzyk slipped, skated back out into the yard, and I, wet and humiliatingly sausage-scented, ended up on the table among the clean cups as if that had been my plan all along.

That evening Mrs. Olia sat by the same window, sighed, and announced that from now on she would feed me only outside. A sensible decision. I also drew conclusions: sausage on a windowsill is not food, it’s a human quest with unnecessary extra levels. Tomorrow I’ll wait under the window, just like at the beginning. I’m a cat, not part of the renovation crew.