Here's another story called "Marlaina's Message". The most unusual incident involving my cat Marlaina happened while I was away one weekend at a conference. My usual cat-sitter was unavailable, so I let Marlaina have the run of my apartment and left her extra food and water for the day I would be gone. The last thing I remembered before locking my place was redoing my answering machine message.
I called my phone that night from the conference, wanting to see if I had any messages. The phone rang and rang, but my machine didn't kick in. I thought to myself, "I must not have turned my machine back on," and forgot about it as I went back to my conference.
My friend called the next day to ask how the conference went. After a few rings she got a "Mmrrowr?" My friend was rather surprised to recognize Marlaina's voice on the answering machine. "Marla?!" asked my friend. "Mrowr," came the reply. "Marla," my friend continued, "where's your Daddy?" "Beeeeeep . . ." came the reply.
Marlaina had reset my answering machine and left her own outgoing message! When I came home later on, my friend left the message: "Hart, I think your cat redid your message and was rather upset you weren't home." Since that time Marlaina has always gone with me or I've found someone to cat-sit her. We think she was trying to call out for a shrimp-and-tuna pizza, but can't prove it.