Why talk to a human if you can talk to a cat, ya know?
Sure, both species have a notorious reputation because of their questionable decisions in life, but at least with a cat, you know where they stand, and you can sorta-kinda expect it. So, you can’t really deem them jerks.
But I digress.
If anything, talking to a cat is fostering a close relationship and it’s just downright adorable. And it also gives you a chance to get into unlikely, yet very entertaining (and by proxy, amplifying the adorableness) situations. Situations like having your mind blown by the fact that your cat can knock on doors.
Plot twist! It wasn’t the cat.
More Info: Reddit
Do you talk to you cat? Why wouldn't you? You can get into so many exciting situations that way—like getting your mind blown in a smoking stupor
Image credits: antony griffiths (not the actual cat)
Meet Almond, a.k.a. Reddit user u/thatgirlagain17, who has recently shared a story of adorably accidental mischief on the r/TrueOffMyChest subreddit.
You see, Almond has a neighbor who, whenever he returns home from a hard day’s work, he greets his little cat called Kevin with a “Hello, Kevin.” A kind of monotonous, work-talk kind of “Hello, Kevin.” Kevin reciprocates in pretty much the same way with a meow.
One Redditor recently shared something she needed to get off her chest—how she accidentally made her neighbor think his cat called Kevin can knock on the door
Image credits: thatgirlagain17
Almond doesn’t know the neighbor—they’ve never talked—but she can hear everything that happens in the communal hallway of their 4-unit building. And since she works from home, she also hears all of the neighbor’s “Hello, Kevins.”
It’s also important to note that her neighbor likes to partake in some recreational consumption of astro turf. You can probably already guess where this is going.
Anywho, with this in mind, one day, it starts off with the usual. Neighbor comes home. “Hello, Kevin.” The slight whiff of recreation starts seeping into OP’s home. Unlike most days, though, she starts hearing Kevin reciprocating louder than usual. It almost felt like he wasn’t reciprocating as much as he was trying to establish communication.
You see, her neighbor got a tad bit too high one day, and managed to somehow lock his cat outside, which ended in a game of Marco Polo, except with "Kevin!?" and "Meow"
Image credits: thatgirlagain17
Shortly, she starts hearing the neighbor calling Kevin, as if trying to find him. Uh oh. Something’s not right. The back and forth between human and feline continued until OP decided to peep out the door. Kevin was outside the neighbor’s door, doing the cat equivalent of “let me in.” Meanwhile, her next door neighbor was still frantically looking for his feline companion inside the flat.
After evaluating the situation—and the fact that the cat was most likely gonna have a hard time getting his owner’s attention behind a piece of entryway equipment—she decided to knock on the door. A moment of pause followed. Then she heard an amazed and perhaps fearful exclamation “Kevin?!”
Almond quickly bolted back to her apartment and gently closed the door, only to hear her neighbor, high as a kite, open the door and be the most adorably-stoned-kind-of-amazed, whispering “How did you do that, Kevin?”
Well, the game was ended with a knock on the door, which the stoned-out-of-his-mind neighbor thought Kevin was responsible for, but in reality it was OP all along
Image credits: thatgirlagain17
Needless to say, the neighbor was thrilled in his own way to see Kevin, immediately broaching the question of "How did you do that, Kevin?"
Image credits: Simeon Spearman (not the actual cat)
It seemingly took quite a while until OP recovered from the laughter-induced lung and cheek pain, imagining how mind-blown her stoned-out-of-his-mind neighbor was by the discovery that his cat could do human things, i.e. knock.
Bored Panda reached out to Almond for an interview on the accidental prank she pulled on her neighbor.
“I have hopes that he was at least an 8 [out of 10] on the mind blowing scale for a while,” elaborated Almond. “I’d imagine when he sobered up, he either realized someone else in the building knocked or Kevin figured out some weird trick. A lot of people have commented on my post saying that their cat can knock, so I guess anything is possible!”
And that is not far from the truth, as we have found one of the commenters providing video evidence of how cats can pull it off, which you can find in this Facebook reel. You’re welcome.
Folks found the story wholesome, cute, and hilarious, making it go viral with over 26K upvotes
The post immediately drew a crowd, garnering over 26,000 upvotes (with a 99% positivity rating), and loads of comments from people who found it hilarious and absolutely adorable.
Constant commenter queries led to a little edit of the post, where Almond elaborated on what Kevin looks like—small cat, grayish fluffy coat, big eyes, shy, yet aloof—and how happy she is the post brought so much joy to many a Redditor.
Now, the million-dollar question is would Almond do it again, or would she mayhaps one-up her own mischief?
“I don’t think I’d do it again, because that would make it much less mystical. The first time it happens, it’s an absolutely crazy experience, and repeating that would take away some of the mystery,” said Almond. “My neighbor would just think it’s something Kevin does. If it happens again, I would probably introduce myself this time around. That was actually my plan the first time this happened, but hearing how awestruck my neighbor was through the door made my hijinks instinct kick in.”
She continued: “A commenter suggested sending postcards/mail to Kevin to my neighbor's apartment, and I think that would be really funny. It would make my neighbor wonder how on earth Kevin ended up subscribing to Fisherman’s Monthly magazine or getting random postcards from around the world.”
Now I’m tempted to do that to the neighbor's cat…
Anyways, Almond concluded our interview by expressing her joy that so many people found happiness in what was originally a whim-moment: “It’s been a difficult time all around, and I'm glad to be able to cheer people up by sharing some dumb thing I did on a whim. ‘Hello Kevin’ has been a part of my life for about a year now, and it's just some silly thing that makes me happy. I think we need more of that in the world—little things that make us smile.”
You can read the wholesome post in context here. But before you do that, do leave a comment with your thoughts, stories, or maybe just say hello to Kevin in the comment section below! You can never know when cats will develop the ability to read and comprehend English, so this might serve as a nice surprise to Kevin in case of that non-zero chance of developing extra sentience.