In a quiet little office tucked away in the back corner of a printing shop, two cats named Max and Bruno held a very important job. Every evening after the humans left, they would sneak into the copy room and perform their nightly duties: shredding confidential papers.
Max, a sleek orange tabby with tiger stripes, took his job seriously. Bruno, a fluffy and slightly grumpy brown cat, was his loyal (and mostly sleepy) assistant. Together, they tore documents with precision — a claw here, a rip there — and left behind piles of perfectly ruined paper. It was a satisfying job, one that had been in their family for generations.
But one day, things changed.
When Max strutted into the office one morning, he froze in horror. Sitting where their favorite pile of papers used to be was a hulking machine with the word “SHREDDER” printed across its belly. It hummed ominously, spewing long, neat strips of paper into a bin.
Bruno sat beside Max, staring at the machine with narrowed eyes. “What is that thing?” he muttered.
Max’s tail twitched. “It’s… it’s trying to take our jobs!”
They watched in dismay as the shredder munched document after document, faster than either of them ever could.
Later that night, the two cats held a secret meeting behind the water cooler.
“We have to fight back,” Max declared. “That machine has no passion. No claws. It doesn’t pounce. It doesn’t play with the paper before it destroys it. It doesn’t understand the art!”
Bruno nodded. “And it doesn’t shed fur into the printer. How will they even know we’re around anymore?”
They devised a plan: Max would distract the humans by acting extremely cute and knocking over coffee mugs, while Bruno sneaked in and unplugged the shredder.
But their plan backfired — the humans simply plugged the shredder back in and gave Max a treat for being adorable.
Defeated, Max and Bruno returned to their usual spot in the corner, watching the machine do their work.
“Well,” Bruno sighed, “at least we weren’t replaced by a dog.”
Max gave a long sigh. “Yeah. But it still feels like betrayal.”
And so, the cats retired from their shredding duties — but not from their role as professional nappers and accidental keyboard walkers. After all, there are some things no machine can replace.
Copyright by Iflex9