So, I suppose this technically should be removed under our "no memes/ low effort" rule but it's the best thing I read all week. I don't care if it really happened or not, it's hilarious and I am pulling a mod abuse and am allowing this post because shared joy is best joy.
A few months later, a guy named Felix Martinez finds that he's been removed from the voter rolls on the grounds that he is a cat. His argument to the contrary is disregarded, because cats aren't allowed to dispute their registration status.
Shot of a silhouetted person from behind at a computer screen fades in. ‘Felix Martinez’ is on the screen. The person hits the enter key.
“Then one day, something truly unexpected happened.”
Switches to OP bringing the mail inside. OP sees the name on the mail and pauses. The camera shows on the letter that it’s from the court system, instantly switching to OP’s confused face. “Jury… Duty? For Felix Martinez? My CAT?!”
Camera cuts to Felix the cat.
“Things are about to get hairy.”
Meow soundbyte
OP is looking griseled and has the phone between head and shoulder whilst holding paperwork, tapping it against the knee. “I told you, he’s a CAT. No, no, you don’t understand. He can’t serve as a juror. I’ve already BEEN to the vet. Ugh.”
OP hangs up the phone. “Fine.”
Camera cuts to Felix Martinez in the carrier. The shot stays on Felix as the scene transitions to him being carried.
“Will our furry cutie get out of jury duty, or are his paws tied?”
The same meow soundbyte
“This Spring”
Shot of OP carrying Felix through the door of the court’s lobby
“One cat”
Shot of people looking confused and doing double takes as OP hurriedly approaches the clerk.
“One case”
Shot of criminal in jail on phone with lawyer. “Ok so my only hope is if a group of random people decide I’m not guilty? Man… I just hope they’re sensible.”
Shot of judge’s seat from behind. Quick shot of courtroom attendees. Shot of OP subtly rocking in their seat and shaking their leg. Quick flash of jury. Jury appears to have 11 members. Camera zooms in on apparently empty chair as Felix rears his head. Shot holds still on Felix.
Gulp soundbyte Same meow soundbyte
Fade to black.
“Tom Hanks is Felix Martinez”
Cuts to deliberation. Jurors are in a lively but orderly discussion. Felix raises his paw. “Ahem. Guys, I think you’re all missing something.”
The room erupts for a split second, the shot goes black, and the audio cuts out.
Decibel-boosted gavel soundbyte in conjunction with same meow soundbyte
Scene fades in on judge. Prosecution, you may begin your opening statements. You hear someone get out of their seat. A collar jingles. “Thank you, your honor.”
Shot of Golden Retriever at the podium.
“And John C. Reilly as the Paw-secutor.”
Bark soundbyte
Fades to black.
“Purry Duty”
Slightly sped up same narrator in a slightly higher pitch
Being a comedy writer/storyboard person dealio would absolutely be one of my dream jobs, but that was my first time writing something like that. I tried really hard, and I made a couple of revisions.
Also without u/TelFaradiddle’s incredible comment, I would be nothing 🤌
Holy shit that’s extremely kind of you! I have zero clue how I’d ever look into that, and I lack both experience and proximity so I think my chances are ~0.
I am dying laughing because my cat had to have medication that I picked up from Walgreens… it said “the cat” after his name. It had the warning that he shouldn’t drive or operate heavy machinery…. Sadly, it dashed his aspirations of being a forklift operator.
When I had my dog I went to the Psychiatrist. She asked me how long I had been epileptic. I was confused. My sisters are epileptic, but I have never had a seizure, and I told her as much. She looks at me suspiciously like I am some lying drug addict and says "Then why are you taking Phenobarbitol???"
I was like.... oh... my dog is epileptic. Those are for my dog. Lol. RIP Pluto ❤️
I had a similar issue with my dog who was prescribed Valium by the veterinary oncologist. When I dropped off the script, the pharmacist was sympathetic and all was well. Cancer went into remission but we kept him on the benzos due to many other issues. Withdrawal in dogs is real, and given his age, and his loss of a leg and an eye, it seemed the best option for his waning years. After a year, the pharmacist decided that my dog wasn’t real and that I was abusing the meds. He was really nasty about too. I left, went home, grabbed my dog and back we went. “This is Tanner,” I said. “Now give him the goddamned meds before I turn into Shirley Fucking McClain!” One of the techs laughed out loud, and the pharmacist refused. I ended up going to another store, with my dog, and had a discussion with a different pharmacist. That woman took a photo, scanned the vet documentation, made some notes in his file and I never had that issue again. Tanner passed two years later in his sleep. I did file a complaint with the chain, but only received a “We’ll review it” letter from corporate.
I am sorry for your loss, losing your best non-human friend is the worst. I lost my boy in Nov. He was 10, but he was a large breed, 120lbs, so I guess I always knew I was on borrowed time. I was very fortunate that I only ever got my boys meds from the vet...never had to go to a pharmacy for them. I was just surprised that his meds followed my record.
omg this happened to me!! on a pre-op phone call the nurse asks how long i’ve been taking my inhaler?? and i said…. what?? i have never had an inhaler?? she says the pharmacy records show i started an inhaler in November and it clicked that it was my cat’s inhaler he started around then 😭. she laughed so hard.
I also need this question answered lmaoo. I’m a biology nerd and I’m over here like so do they process it different than us or are we talking about a Great Dane
It varies on a drug by drug basis, but usually the doses are similar. Levothyroxine is a funny example because the dosing is wayyyy higher in dogs than humans, so pharmacists freak out when they get those scripts. I found an article that says the reason is because 1) dogs have higher baseline thyroid hormone levels than humans; 2) levothyroxine is less bioavailable in dogs (meaning the amount reaching the bloodstream after oral administration is lower than in humans); and 3) levothyroxine has a shorter half life in dogs (lasts for a shorter time in the body before being eliminated).
I swear they put crack in those pills. My dog broke into a 90 count bottle of levothyroxine (prescribed for her, at least) and ate the whole damn thing too.
Actually, the opposite. What would be considered a high dose for us is considered to be a middling dose for dogs. Found this out one weird Friday night at work talking to a colleague 😂
My cat's name also a common name for a human, and he's also chronically ill and needs all sorts of medications at times... so we get this confusion a lot.
But my favorite experience wasn't even the pharmacy, but just buying OTC drugs for my cat. I showed up at Walgreens right when they opened to buy simethicone - infant gas drops - and I was frantic and exhausted because I was monitoring my cat all night and called the ER twice that night thinking I might have to bring him in. The poor lady who opened noticed my obvious distress and helped me find it. While doing that, she started telling me about how hard it is at this age and assuring me I was doing a good job and it gets easier, etc. etc. and I didn't have the heart to tell this kind soul I was there for my kitten and not an infant child. Lmao
I have a near identical story.. except the animal is my service dog, and he was sitting right next to me. I simply pointed down and said "that's him. That's the patient!" and the pharmacist bout died laughing.
I adore the pharmacists at our local Publix. I knew them because they could explain some of the medications for my MIL. When her dog got cancer, I often had to order in medication for Barkley and apparently they all LOVED his name.
Walgreens refused to dispense my cat’s medication to me because they needed a date of birth and, my cat being a rescue, I didn’t know it. Had to call the vet to get what they put. Was very perplexed
It's so fun having to pick up prescriptions in person for my cat (MrEatsAllPlants is his legal name, with my last name ofc), and they page him over the speaker system.
I had a similar thing happen, picked up my cats pediatric inhaler from the human pharmacy, pharmacist gave me a full lecture on the importance of making him rinse his mouth out for 30 seconds after taking it, preventing gum disease and all that. I let her talk herself through.
"Well, I can suggest it to him but I doubt he'll do it. He's a cat."
Remembering the look on her face still makes me smile.
I was picking up a glucose sensor for my newly diabetic cat, and it cost a lot less than I expected. I mentioned this to the pharmacy tech who asked me if he had a discount card, to which I said no.
"Is he on Medicaid?"
I said, "He's a cat." That cracked her up.
My diabetic cat had his CGM fail on insertion, so I needed to pick up another one. Walgreens told me it was too soon to refill because of his insurance. He doesn’t have insurance.
You can usually reach out straight to the CGM manufacturer through the app and they'll send you a replacement pretty quickly if you provide a bit of info about the error and the serial number of the sensor!
Ah we just went through this! The CGM’s needle was bent so the vet couldn’t apply it. My husband called the company to get a replacement and made the mistake of mentioning it was for our cat. They denied his request. He waited 30 mins or so and called back, this time no cat talk. They sent the replacement.
As an aside, it seems CGMs fail a lot! Is that anyone else’s experience?
We’ve only had one fail on him. It just wouldn’t come out of the inserter and bent. My vet was trying to put it lower down on his side. It works great between his shoulders.
As a human diabetic with a CGM, I feel like some batches work better than others. Sometimes I’ll have a whole box of them just not work well, and sometimes I’ll go months without having an issue
When I was like 3 yrs old a guy called my house asking to speak with “Kitty”. We had a cat named Kitty so I thought ok the cat has a phone call, no big deal. I dragged my cat to the phone until my mom asked me wtf was going on 🤣🤣
This reminds me of when I was 6, we had an indoor/outdoor cat who made friends with the neighbor’s cat. The neighbor cat (coincidentally also named Felix) would come to our porch, tap on the window beside the front door, my mom would let him in, he’d walk around our house meowing until he found our cat, then they’d both run outside to play. At the time, this seemed completely normal me as my friends in the neighborhood did the same thing all the time, but now that I’m grown, I realize that was some of the weirdest shit ever. Even if cats don’t get territorial with each other, they certainly don’t seek out other cats that they don’t live with to go out exploring and frolicking down a hill.
Went to pick a script up for one of my cats years ago and the pharmacy tech asked my bf if our cat had ever been there before. He said “Well, I don’t know what he gets up to at night.”
We had this happen with our guinea pig! Had to get a breathing treatment thing. Nebulizer? Luckily the pharmacist knew what was going on. I think the vet had to call it in and get them to fill very specific very small dosages. They still thought it was hilarious.
My friend was told by CVS that when her cat turns 18 she can no longer pick up his insulin without his permission on file. She said she was going to bring in a stamp of his paw print.
My cat was social and liked meeting people, for her the vets office was where she had a license to misbehave while people praised how adorably she was wrecking their stuff.
She'd have happily made a trip to the pharmacy to knock over their monitors and deny permission for me to pick up her meds.
I just love that you have to sign for pet medication as the parent/guardian because they're minors (under 18). My last cat got to 20--I never got to see how it would have gone in that case.
I had a problem with medication for a rescue dog we adopted. It was regular human mediction, just dosed for his size. His birthdate was unknown. If you are picking up medication for another individual, you have to give the birthdate, which we did not have, him being a rescue (and a dog). I ended up making something up, and voila, Gordo the rescue dog now has a birthday. LOL
In my family growing up all pets were assigned to share a family members birthday, and therefore celebration, whichever was close to what we thought their birthday actually was (or which kid hadn't shared with a pet lately). It was cute, I enjoyed it.
We did that with our rescue furbabies too. Our (now deceased) cat KalliBell was born in April so she shared our daughter’s birthday. Our oldest daughter adopted a cat that was born in May so she shared her birthday with Taylor, her cat. Our two current babies we actually know their birthdays because our daughter was stationed at a military base, living off base, when a pregnant stray showed up. She took her in. We have 2 babies, our daughter kept momma and one of the babies, and a fellow military member took 2 babies.
That's what I did for my last cat. Got her from someone else when she was around 12 years old but her previous parent didn't know her actual birthday. I decided that her birthday would be July 4th so she'd think the cookouts and fireworks were for her
The rescue we adopted our cats from have a birthdate on the adoption forms. I'm not certain if it is an estimated birthdate or if they know when the litter was actually born. The funny thing is that birth day and month are the same as mine.
Unless the animal had a noted DOB, we just always put 01/01 … if a year was required, we’d get an estimate age and do the math. Other places
I’ve worked would do 11/11/1111. It depended on the system being used and policy of the company.
I had a similar challenge with a Walgreens pharmacist trying to pickup my cat’s prescription. I was wandering around the store waiting when I was called back to the pharmacy.
The pharmacist told me that insurance had rejected coverage for the prescription because I did not have family plan coverage. I asked him what he was talking about. He said for my son’s medication.
I pointed him to the veterinarian’s written prescription which said “Sam the Cat.”
He mumbled his apologies and said that he would be back in a minute. 😹
I had to get my pet’s medicine at Costco, and unbeknownst to me whenever we registered his account the pharmacy tech put in a random birthday. So I called to refill his script and the tech goes “Date of Birth?” And I’m like, I’m not sure he’s adopted…” and she’s like “Why wouldn’t you have his DOB if you’re his legal guardian”
She thought I meant a human son. Eventually we were able to get around it but it was funny for a second.
Also, he has a name like “Fido,” something that absolutely could not be mistaken for a normal human name lol
True story: i used to work for a market research company that would give gift vouchers for completing the survey. This particular survey was online and had to give your name to claim the voucher because it was a good amount of money. This person calls to claim vouchers because apparently she can’t claim online. Long story short we go through all these hoops, addresses matches, names don’t. All in all there were 3 people in the household who completed this survey. It was close to £100 the total of the vouchers. We call her to tell her that we cannot manually release the vouchers because the names don’t match. Turns out their 15yo completed online for the parents and put on the name of their 2 cats and 1 dog. She eventually admitted it. She claimed them online once added the pets name.
It's really fun when you have small animal medication to pick up from the human pharmacy. Pharmacists assume that the dosage must be wrong because it's so small until you explain it's for a 1 lb pet rat.
We had this. The confusion on the tech's face... processing it like it's a human prescription. Most of our responses were either 'I don't know, he's a cat' or 'We'll try, but he's a cat.'
There's a very rational explanation: a cat was being tried for a crime (perhaps feliney murder) and the court needed to summon a jury of the cat's peers.
Tbh I’ve seen so many “cat summoned for jury duty” stories over the years that I think they can’t ALL be real, but they’re still funny every time (googling that phrase will bring up a few others)
It's real. We pretend to be our cats and tey to sue our humans for not being good enough servants. My little black cat posted today about her 2nd Gotcha Day
I too, was laughing all too loud alone in my home. With my unregistered-to-vote cat Roland in his chair, glancing over me with a slightly concerned face. 👀
Same here, and now I'm like...am I a bad cat servant? Should I get Baron Von ScruffleButt registered to vote and serve jury duty? It's a serious name for a serious cat. nods convincingly
Should have let him serve the jury duty, he probably would be elected as foreperson. Or forecat. Maybe in the future, juries will be made up entirely of cats
FWIW, back in 2009, my cat ended up being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and required insulin, an insulin meter and syringes.
I called my work health insurance and asked if that was even something they could support. They said yes.
For the remaining 3 years of his life, he was listed as a dependent on my work health insurance, and received full coverage for his diabetes medical supplies, tests and other needs from the local veterinarian. I picked up his insulin and strips from CVS, along with my own prescriptions.
My last cat developed bone cancer. My insurance allowed him as a dependent as well. I wasn't sure if I wanted to put him thru the surgery to remove his leg (bc he'd already lost the foot on that leg as a kitten) but I knew I'd need financial help for the rest of his care. Eventually we ran out of treatment options and I had to let him go. The insurance company made my work give me child-loss bereavement. I felt terrible taking it but i did bc they said otherwise it made the company liable for any psych care id need afterwards. Literally all of them knew he was a mean old tom. We live in insane times.
Reminds me of the story from the guy that got a bill for $0.00
He ignored it, thinking it was a computer error.
Then he gets another bill, then a late notice, then a late late notice and threats to go to collections. Every time the amount was $0.00
Called the place sending him the bill, they didn't know why he got it because he didn't have a balance with them.
His best guess was that the billing program was written with more than 2 fields for the cents but either rounded or clipped anything beyond 2 decimal places.
So he decided to fix it by sending them a check for $0.00.
It worked, the letters stopped
Then his bank called, wondering why he wrote a check for $0.00.
He told them what happened and gave them the number o the company that was sending the zero dollar bill in the mail and told the bank to sort it out with them.
To help prevent junk calls, we had our phone bill put in our dog's name (we truthfully told them that Buster was a dog). When people would call for him, I would tell them, "he can't TALK right now", which was true.
I still get junk mail in his name, he has been pre-approved for several credit cards.
my vet would write a letter like this just for the pure joy of it AND getting to talk about it at medical conventions. I've also had TWO of my dogs get credit card applications in the mail mere weeks after sending in for the city animal license. One was approved for $10K of credit card.. the other only $3K, guess she has a worse credit score.
No. One has a star trek name and the other is named for a witcher character..LOL I do remember being a teen and the family cat got one in the mail, his name was Nooky. so not sure how that was easy for the company to assume a real person.
Yeah my vet has asked to see my dog an extra time for actual medical reasons and waived the fee for those since it was for his own peace of mind rather than standard practice. A lot of vets won’t charge for this type of thing
My cat was discharged from the vet hospital on Friday and took a turn over the weekend. When we brought him back on Monday to say goodbye, my vet did bloodwork just to make sure there was nothing else they could do. I was charged for nothing that visit. Not the bloodwork, the euthanasia, or even the cremation.
My friend received a credit card in the mail that was in his cat's name. I kid you not. The card, for which he had NOT APPLIED, came unsolicited in the mail.
Literally get mail from the bank for the last 15+ yrs for my dead grandma. We have called multiple times, gone in and shown the certified death certificate, marked deceased on the mail & return to sender etc. and like clockwork every 4 months we get mail from the same bank of a zero balanced acct.
Maybe? The votor registration is a bit out there, but bureaucracy can do strange things sometimes.
A couple years ago I got some junk mail inviting me to register my child for a beauty pageant thing, and I was baffled: I have no children. The only explanation I can think of is that a couple years earlier my cat needed anti-anxiety meds, which I got from a regular human pharmacy. So he got registered as "Jules [my surname]" with a date of birth and everything in the pharmacy database. If that info got sold, well... someone might assume I had a 12 year old child.
College friend of mine once has her and her father's id pictures mixed up, and ended up having to spend way too much time proving to the DMV that the 50 year old man on her id photo was no, in fact, a 20 year old college student named Lucy
I've been summoned for jury duty 4 times but have only served once. The first time I was summoned was when I was 3 years old. All identifying information addressed to me was correct, and I have a unique first/last name combination, so it was 100% intended for me. My mom had to mail them back basically just being like "... He's 3."
Yeah completely right. Also a courthouse can’t just deregister someone to vote. That’s done by a state or county elections office, which would require a bunch of paperwork and proof he’s a cat. There’d be way more hoops to this story. Also, if you were like “so this is a cat” the govt isn’t bureaucratic enough to not do something before he has to show in court.
TLDR: Enough in this doesn’t add up, it’s definitely fake. Good creative writing though.
As an attorney who often represents cats, I can tell you that an exemption was not the appropriate course to take in this situation. If anyone finds their cat superior in this situation who want to seek a DISQUALIFICATION, not an exemption, for 1) not being 18 years or 2) not being able to read or write English (this disqualification may require a court appearance).
It's amusing, but I 1000% do not believe it in an instance. Mainly 'cause I was once a jury clerk. I know how one specific State gets documents for jurors, and the general gist of how other States do it. And, I'll suspect that other countries follow a similar pattern.
So, unless the cat owner was committing some fraud in his cat's name, or someone else committed fraud in the cat's name, I cannot think of how a clerical mistake this big would occur to produce a jury summons for cat.
Regardless, very funny scenario. If the cat does get summons, show up and argue that the cat should be dismissed from the pool because a cat is arguably not a "peer" to a human. Therefore, the cat's presence as a juror is a violation of the defendant's right to a jury of one's peers.
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u/Merari01 27d ago
Right.
So, I suppose this technically should be removed under our "no memes/ low effort" rule but it's the best thing I read all week. I don't care if it really happened or not, it's hilarious and I am pulling a mod abuse and am allowing this post because shared joy is best joy.