Table manners are overrated.
Difficult Mode is overrated.
Baby Mode is the secret to success.
Just ask Deku, the cat who spills sunshine.
Deku spills a multitude of things.
Our trembly tabby can’t keep his kibble in the bowl. He can’t keep his enthusiasm within reasonable limits. And he certainly can’t keep a secret as good as Baby Mode to himself.
Lumbering through the Lobby like a green-eyed Jell-O mold, Deku takes on the world by taking it easy. He may have been born with some medical bobbles in his brain. He may sway and topple from time to time. He may commune with corners of the room like a stuck Roomba.
(He may have earned the name “Perpetual Vortex” from our Executive Director. He may have pooped with pomp and pageantry on our Executive Director’s floor. Repeatedly. He may cause Berry to shriek like an insulted oboe. He may be proud of these accomplishments.)
But Deku isn’t stumbling, he’s swaggering. His inner soundtrack is Prince songs, limericks, and daily affirmations, like “Deku delights the world every day, in every way.”
Life in this Lobby is a bowl of cherries, the weird jellied kind that grandmas put in fruitcakes. Deku has no idea what that means, but it makes him laugh.
Deku has yet to hear anything that does not make him laugh.
Deku finds it hilarious when lunch arrives. Deku finds it hilarious when lunch becomes an art project, spattering fish particles in a twenty-foot radius.
Deku finds it equally hilarious when cats find him exquisite and when they find him exasperating. Deku finds it hilarious that we are all here together.
If Deku finds you hilarious, you will never be lost again.
But there is nothing more hilarious to Deku than “Difficult Mode.” Well, human eyebrows and cocktail wieners are pretty funny, too.
But no, Difficult Mode is even more hilarious.
Difficult Mode is what people do when they are trying to be “adults.” Difficult mode looks like eating your vegetables first. Difficult Mode looks like trying to earn your oxygen by forswearing fun until all your tasks are done. Difficult Mode looks like furrowing your brow until you have suffered enough to smile. Difficult Mode looks very solemn and very dignified and very adult.
Deku is not sure what “adult” means, but it makes him laugh.
Deku wants everyone to find everything hilarious, which is why he counsels Baby Mode.
He borrows this term from his original angel, our Volunteer Coordinator. Jae was Deku’s foster parent, and Jae’s legendary patience is revered all the way from New Jersey to Deku’s home planet. (We do not know its precise location, only that it is distant, perfect, and hilarious.)
Jae learned Deku’s quirks and qualities one by one, the better to love him. Jae worked tenderly with Deku to keep him safe and silly, which are equally important. And when Deku moved to the Lobby, Jae spilled a crucial secret.
Here it is: Deku may initially resist getting his anti-seizure medication. “But if he gives you any trouble at all, just pick him up, and he goes into Baby Mode. I also just recommending picking him up for a snuggle in general.”
Being too busy to snuggle is overrated.
Keeping good stuff to yourself is overrated.
Delight, whether dignified or delirious, is the secret to success.
So take it from our brilliant, bouncing Deku. Soften up those solemn eyebrows. Wiggle and jiggle until your flaws come into focus, as proof that you were hand-crafted.
Trade hustle for hilarity.
When you are allowed to be exactly as odd as you are, you don’t have to earn anything.
When everyone goes swoony-in-the-knees, even though you are as jiggly as a lime parfait, you are proud to be perfect.
And when you are a Tabby’s Place cat (feline or otherwise), you can’t help but spill sunshine.
Medical note: If you think Deku looks like he has cerebellar hypoplasia, we thought the same thing. Deku thought that was hilarious. Deku’s MRI was completely normal.
But, our little boy is not yet adoptable, as we are working with specialists to determine Deku’s diagnosis. Meanwhile, Deku keeps working to determine the shortest daily route to delight. Videos below courtesy of stellar staff members Grace and Jae.