While I accept the realities of this situation I'm not sure the rodents were able to so I felt it my duty to place the facts before them and reach a compromise suitable for both parties. I waited until after they'd had their breakfast from my 'The Him' and been out for a bit of exercise with my 'The Her'. Only one thing might have marred the discussions and that's when I approached the seating place and the large one called Penny looked down at me as I walked past. I couldn't help but look back and go closer. Instead of backing away she put her nose to mine and sniffed. I brought my paw up and smacked her. My 'The Her' was most displeased but with me? and not with Penny. I didn't understand this and was going to argue but being a most placid fellow I walked away.
Back in their cage and the Longlegs having left the room I sauntered slowly up to the cage. There were hisses of derision but I didn't let it bother me as I settled two feet away.
"What do you want cat" ? said Amy, the biggest of them and their obvious leader.
" I've decided to let you stay" I replied, "But, there are some things we'd better get straight."
" Oh yes, and what would those be Pussykins" chipped in the one they call Bernie.
Reminding myself I had a debt to pay sometime I looked at Amy and told her, " Firstly, I don't want to see you move if you're outside the cage and I come into the room.
Secondly, there's to be no more name calling if we both live in the same place and lastly I'll make sure the Longlegs tolerate you if you remember my word is law here."
"Well Mr. Cat" she replied, "I think we can probably manage to do without the name calling if it works both ways but I'm not sure we can manage without moving once we're out of the cage since it's what the humans expect of us. As far as your word being law, I'm afraid we can't agree to that since you might just expect us to do things that will go against our nature. Tell you what. let's agree to no more name calling and see how it goes. If you don't annoy us I won't ask Penny to tweak your tail, how's that?"
As you can see I'm a very reasonable cat but even I couldn't agree to that and lose face so I had to leave the room and here we are with a dilemma. How can I learn to live with these rodents if they won't accept the most reasonable of terms?