All great ideas come after midnight, right? Sure. I was opening some mail that I picked up earlier today, and inside a Halloween goody bag from Michelle was an orange balloon. All of a sudden, I knew what I had to do.

Yep, you guessed it. I tried to communicate with Bug with written words. My plan was to ask him to pop the balloon/message if he understood it.

I held it up for him for a while, so he could read it. I’m a slow reader, myself, and I’m sure that reading speed is a genetic trait that’s passed down. I wanted to make sure he had time.

No response.

Oh, well. Better try my hand at Cat.

The thing is, I’m not great with verb conjugation, and I was worried that Bug wasn’t understanding me. I explained the situation to Janice. Her response?

“It’s obvious. Bug is illiterate.”

This is almost hard for me to believe. This cat knows where the laser pointer comes from, he knows what not to knock over (and demonstrates this by knocking those things over), and he can tell the difference between moon and star shaped treats. It seems impossible that this brilliant beast is illiterate. But as I sit here, balloon still blown up, I realize… it might be true.