Training Dummy Identified; I Demonstrate Perfect Self-Control

The thing arrived in a cardboard prison, its vacant gaze already peering through a plastic window. My human made a series of high-pitched noises she reserves for things that are either very small or very fluffy—a category I myself dominate. She liberated the creature and held it aloft. It was a simulacrum of a human infant, swaddled in a garish floral print and sporting a pink bow that was, frankly, an affront to good taste. It smelled of vinyl and vague sweetness, a scent that failed to register in my brain’s library of "prey" or "food." She placed it in the center of the living room rug, a sacrificial offering to an unknown god, and looked at me expectantly. I approached with the practiced silence of my ancestors. My tail gave a single, dismissive flick. This was no rival. It was an object. I circled it once, my tuxedo fur brushing against the floor. The doll’s hazel eyes, supposedly “expressive,” were a glassy, static void. I lowered my head, sniffing its detailed, yet lifeless, feet. Nothing. I gave a tentative pat with a softened paw. The soft body yielded with a pathetic squish. This was an insult to my intelligence. Was I meant to pounce on this? To "nurture" it, as the box seemed to imply? Absurd. I am a predator, not a nanny. Then, a revelation. My human had been watching a documentary about those desert cats, the ones who teach their young to hunt using stunned, but still living, prey. Her mind, simple as it is, must have made a flawed connection. This doll, this soft, unresisting lump, was not a toy for *me*. It was a tool. A "Beginner's Guide to Not Mauling the Small Human" should one ever appear in my territory. It was a test of my restraint, a lesson in cohabitation with the fragile and the useless. I was meant to observe it, to understand its passivity, and to learn to ignore it with supreme indifference. Having deciphered its true purpose, I rendered my final verdict. I walked directly over the doll's midsection—its "huggable" nature providing a minor but not unpleasant cushion under my paws—and leaped onto the sofa. I began a meticulous grooming session, pointedly turning my back on the training dummy. Let the small humans practice their swaddling. I have more important matters to attend to, such as demonstrating the perfect form for a 14-hour nap. The doll can stay, as a silent testament to my magnificent self-control.