"My fault? How can this possibly be my fault? It was the stupid cat," her roommate, Cailey argued.
"How did the cat even get in here in the first place?"
"I don't know! It was running around in the hall making a lot of noise and when I opened the door the cat ran in here and jumped on your desk and your perfume bottles were sitting so close to the edge they fell off!"
"Then it's your fault the cat got in and your fault it broke my perfume bottles!"
"This is ridiculous. Let's go talk to our RA and see what she has to say about whose fault it is."
"Fine by me."
The two girls walked down the hall and into their RA's room. The RA let them each tell their own side of the story and why they felt the way they did about whose fault it was. Cailey explained how Alex shouldn't have left her perfume bottles so precariously placed on the edge of the desk where a single little bump could make them fall. Alex talked about how Cailey let the cat in the room where it was able to cause so much trouble.
The RA listened to each of them intently before speaking about her opinions on the matter. "It sounds to me like the cat is the one who really is at fault here and not either one of you. Go get this cat and bring it here to me so that we may sort this situation out to a proper resolution."
"What?" the two girls asked at the same time.
"You heard me. Find the cat and bring it to me."
"But the cat ran out of the room while we were arguing," Cailey protested.
"How are we supposed to find it?" Alex added.
"Perhaps if you worked together you might be able to find it."
The RA turned her attention back to her own project she was working on, indicating the matter was closed. Cailey and Alex left the room and began looking for the cat. They asked around the residence halls to see if anyone had seen the cat. Soon enough word spread around campus about how they were looking for this cat. Several people even joined in to help them look for the cat. They searched for several hours and experienced several mishaps during their search. They tripped and slipped in mud, Alex ran into a door, and Cailey climbed a tree after a cat and promptly fell out of it. Throughout the process they found themselves laughing more and more at the ridiculousness of the situation. They never did manage to find the cat but at the end of the day they returned to their RA's room.
"Did you find the cat?" the RA asked.
"No," Alex admitted. "But, to be honest, I don't even feel mad anymore."
"Me either. It all seems kind of silly now," Cailey said smiling.
A smile twitched on their RA's mouth. "Good." She reached under her desk and pulled out much to their surprise the cat from earlier. "This is my cat, Oreo. You two were so caught up in trying to place blame you didn't even stop to think about trying to find the owner of the cat and talking to them. Then you went on what appears to be quite the adventurous journey around campus to find a cat and bring it back for a judgment. Sometimes accidents happen and there isn't anyone to blame." She then pulled out a bottle of perfume, the same kind that had been broken. "Now, I'm sorry for the trouble that Oreo caused. I bought you a replacement bottle while you were making your best attempts to climb trees."
The girls both blushed, embarrassed. "Thank you very much," Alex stammered, picking up the bottle.
"Now shoo, both of you go get cleaned up and refreshed."
The girls both left, having learned a valuable lesson, and returned to their room.
(Personal photo of my cat, Professor)
Author's Note: This story was inspired by The Donkey and the Rock. I made quite a few changes for my story. In the original story one man's donkey knocks another man's jar of oil off a rock and it spills. They argue and go to visit the king who determines that the donkey and the rock are to blame and orders them tried. On the day of the trial many people came to witness the strange event. The judge then reprimands the people for coming to see such an absurd thing they knew to be impossible and makes each of them pay half a cent to leave. The money was then given to the man whose oil was spilled and both men went their own ways pleased with the outcome. For my story I wanted to make it more modern and more relatable so I decided to make it an argument between two roommates who take the argument to their RA. I also changed the details of how the situation was resolved so that it fit better with the story that I had written. I used the image of my own cat since I changed the donkey to a cat for my own story.
Bibliography: Tibetan Folk Tales by A.L. Shelton with illustrations by Mildred Bryant (1925).
