keep your head up

This Vulcan, I’m calling her T’Pen, goes to a shelter and gets a cat, and the shelter employees are like, a bit weirded out? But obviously they’re going to give her a cat, I mean, she’s a Vulcan, she’s Super Responsible, she takes all the pamphlets and listens attentively to all the advice the shelter employees give her, even though it is obvious she researched a lot on her own.

Then T’Pen asks the shelter folks what she should name the cat and runs into That Thing Humans Do Where They Confound a Vulcan With Their Weird Ways

Shelter Employee 1: oh, you can name a cat anything! That’s what’s great! People names, common nouns, whole phrases.

Shelter Employee 2: yeah, nothing sounds weird on a cat. Everything from Chad to Cupboard is fair game.

SE 1: yeah, I mean, you can’t call a dog Chad, that would be weird

SE 2: I wouldn’t fuckin’ trust anyone who named their dog Chad

SE 1: oh word

T’Pen:….

Vulcan Co-worker: T’Pen, what have you named this small Earth feline?

T’Pen: I have named him Marmalade.

Vucan co-worker: Is that not the name of a type of Terran fruit preserve? I do not understand the logic behind this choice.

T’Pen: the logic is self-evident to a human.

Human Co-worker: T’Pen, omg, you have a cat! What’s his name?

T’Pen: thank you for your inquiry. His name is Marmalade

Human Co-worker: oooh! yeah, that makes sense, because he’s orange and sweet! lmao, great name

Vulcan Co-worker: …

T’Pen: He has the peculiar habit of walking on my workstation.

Human: Aggravating, isn’t it?

T’Pen: We Vulcans do not feel human emotions. However, I would prefer it if Marmalade stayed off my workstation, particularly when I am working.

Human: Get a box.

T’Pen: Murdering Marmalade seems an overreaction.

Human: No, you need a box with interior dimensions approximately the same as Marmalade’s body, and set it on the floor next to your workstation. Marmalade will sit in the box.

T’Pen: Why do you believe that this will work for Marmalade?

Human: We don’t know. It’s just something cats do. If he fits, he sits.

T’pen: My colleagues are amused and entertained by Marmalade’s interactions with his environment. I am amused and entertained by their reactions as reflected in the comments.

Vulcan Commander (reading): “U haz done me a startle”?

T’Pen: Some of them like to verbalize what they believe are Marmalade’s thought processes. He is a cat, so they imagine that he does not grasp human spelling and grammar.

Vulcan Commander: … Fascinating. As you were. (signs off)