Posted on 06/02/2021 12:36:55 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A mum ‘howled with laughter’ after her elderly parents asked her to buy them more ‘gorgeous pâté’ – only to discover they had eaten a tin of cat food.
Angela Holloway has been shopping for her mum Margaret Lincoln and step-dad Donald Lincoln throughout the coronavirus crisis, but usually separates the pet food from the rest of the shopping.
That meant the 59-year-old was confused last week when her mum told her they had eaten ‘a really lovely dinner of absolutely gorgeous pâtéand baked bread’.
The Sheffield couple, who now live in France, were eating with Angela’s sister Beverly Weston – but no one had noticed the cat on the packaging, and they struggle to read French labelling.
Upholsterer Angela said that when 80-year-old Margaret showed her tin – which they had finished off completely – she burst into laughter.
The family moved to France in 2015 and admit reading the French labels can still prove tricky – though Angela thought the feline picture on the tin was enough of a giveaway.
She said: ‘Honestly I nearly wet myself. I was absolutely howling with laughter.
‘My mum started laughing then my sister started laughing. My sides were splitting, my mouth was hurting, I was laughing that much.’
None of the trio became ill from eating the tuna-based food, which was meant for their pet cat Aggy.
Though Margaret and Beverly, 56, saw the funny side, 95-year-old step-dad Donald was less amused.
She said: ‘His face was aghast. He [jokingly] said “What are you doing? Trying to poison me?”.
‘My mum had absolute astonishment on her face and because I was laughing she just had to laugh as well, it’s like – oh my god mum what have you done?
‘She said she enjoyed it. She said it was lovely!’
The family, who live in the Charente region, say they are having to find alternatives to British produce after Brexit affected trade.
Angela said that she can no longer buy meat and cheese products from the UK, including her parents favourite, Shippam’s paste, and is on the hunt for good alternatives.
She added: ‘Obviously, living in France, it’s quite hard, we kind of have to work out what something is.
‘And I do try and split it up for her- that’s the cat [food], that’s the dog [food] and things like that but sometimes she gets it a bit cockeyed.’
Though the cat food proved to be a surprisingly popular change from Shippams Paste, Angela says her mum will be extra vigilant in the future.
She added: ‘I’m trying to replicate [products they like such as Shippams Paste]. I shall be watching [out] in the future. Luckily it was gourmet.
‘I think she’ll look twice for a cat on a tin now.’
If you hadn’t told him he’d have been fine. House cats are at least as finicky about eating anything spoiled as a human, probably more so. We once put a freshly caught fish down in front of our cat and she looked up at us with an expression of “What the F do you expect me to do with this?”
Not at all surprising, considering how expensive and fancy pet food is these days. I buy the $5 Costco roast chicken to feed my dogs because it’s a lot cheaper than canned dog food.
Back in the day, my father, brother and I were hanging around in the kitchen and decided to put out dog jerky treats in a glass on the counter, knowing the other brother would come home and wolf them down. We had a good laugh, but not the dog.
Reminds me of an old Paul Gallico story about a French restaurateur who earned a high rating from Michelin after serving the Michelin agent a casserole that he had made for his cat.
I’ve thought about serving it with crackers and champage.
Why not? My cat loves the stuff.
Are those mountain oysters?
LOL! Probably nobody would know. These “pate” cat foods are actually designed to appeal to human beings, since your cat honestly doesn’t know or care if it’s getting the “Asian Fusion pate” or the “Middle East Medley” - or Costco’s cheapest.
Those were literally the names of some canned cat food I saw yesterday at PetSmart when I was looking for worming stuff for my lucky little beast.
For real?
I worked at an office for years, where items would come up missing from the fridge. We sort of figured out it was one of the very successful salesmen. He worked very long hours, so was often there alone, and he was also very frugal.
Then he died, sort of unexpectedly, and we no longer had items go missing from our lunch stash.
Had I been a little smarter or slyer back then, I would have set up some kind of food surprise like you did...…
I do remember him once taking me out to lunch at a nice restaurant, and after a few pleasantries, it became very clear that the whole purpose of the lunch date was that he was trying to get me to say negative things about my boss, who was the head of the organization. When I refused to go down that road, he was quite peeved.
Was he trying to set you up, or just looking to find someone else who didn’t like him?
I believe, trying to set me up. He was successful enough, that a couple complaints to the regional VP might have jeopardized the situation for my boss.
The sales people there were fairly cut-throat, and always going to the boss about how someone should be THEIR client, because they spotted them first. We used to joke about how one of the guys would just carry around the phone book and then could say anyone in the city was on his “prospect list”. Then they would try to play the boss off, to get favorable treatment, for them to get credit for the sales, even if someone else actually made the sale.
The wife’s half-feral Siamese is about as finicky about canned cat food as it gets. Strangely, she doesn’t draw the line at eating at least half of the “presents” she leaves at the front door-usually the parts that most would consider quite unsavory...
For our dogs, the latest backyard treasure discovery was a ten-day dead groundhog whose innards had liquified.
A week ago, their final trip outside for the night turned into a full fledged carcass roll, and they came into the house with their heads and necks still dripping with those savory juices.
I have always maintained that dogs smell no bad odors. There are only good odors, interesting odors and boring odors.
They’re eatin’ high on the..uh..fish.
Yummmm,
Is there anything more delicious than really tasty Paste ?
LMAO!!
Why isn’t there a mouse-flavored cat food?
In fact, the cats preferred their "liver pate" to my expensive deli-bought pate.
Needless to say, I had a great curiosity as to which one was tastier.;-)
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