A Reward Certificate Becomes the Perfect Floor Puck

The object was laid before me on the rug with a certain misplaced reverence, as if it were a freshly caught salmon. It was not. It was a booklet of horrors. On its cover, a blue locomotive with a face frozen in a state of manic glee stared into my soul. I gave my human a long, slow blink to communicate my profound disappointment, then began meticulously cleaning a perfectly clean patch of fur on my shoulder. This was an insult to my intellect. My human, undeterred by my display of utter contempt, peeled off one of the so-called "stickers." It was a smaller, equally disturbing version of the blue train. They waved it in front of my face. I remained impassive. Sighing, they stuck it to the corner of a picture frame, where it would now offend me every time I passed. They then busied themselves with one of the "reward certificates," a slightly larger, more rigid piece of paper. With a pen, they scribbled something—my name, I presumed—and then "For Exceptional Handsomeness." While the sentiment was accurate, the medium was pathetic. They tried to present it to me. I turned my head, exposing the elegant nape of my neck in a clear gesture of refusal. The certificate was abandoned on the polished hardwood floor. Later, under the silver glow of the moon filtering through the window, I descended from my napping throne atop the bookshelf. The house was silent. There, on the floor, was the certificate. My curiosity, a beast I can only occasionally tame, got the better of me. I nudged it with my nose. The paper was smooth, thicker than the sticker pages, with a satisfying stiffness. I gave it a sharp pat with my paw, expecting it to crumple. Instead, it shot away, gliding almost frictionlessly across the gleaming wood. It spun in a lazy arc before coming to a stop near the kitchen doorway. My whiskers twitched. I stalked it, my body low to the ground. Another tap, this time with more force. *Fffft!* It slid a full ten feet, its journey a silent, graceful whisper against the floor. This was no mere "certificate." This was a precision-engineered, low-profile floor skitter-puck. All night, I batted it from room to room, honing my technique, banking it off chair legs, sending it spinning into the darkness under the couch only to retrieve it with a triumphant hook of my paw. The trains were still fools and the stickers an abomination, but this single, magnificent piece of paper? It was, by a glorious and unforgivable accident, a masterpiece of minimalist design. It was worthy.