He thought he was doing his new neighbor a small favor. Instead, he accidentally gave her a cat feeder that had been programmed to insult her pet in his own voice every morning at exactly 6 a.m.
The whole thing started innocently enough. His cat had stopped using an automatic feeder after he changed its food, so he cleaned it out, put it away in a kitchen cabinet, and promptly forgot about it. Six months passed.
Then a woman in his building mentioned that she had recently adopted a cat. Remembering the unused feeder, he offered it to her. It seemed like a thoughtful gesture, and he was happy to get something useful out of his kitchen cabinet.
There was just one tiny problem he had completely forgotten about.
The feeder still had his custom recording stored in its memory.
And the recording was not exactly neighborly.
A Breakfast Announcement From an Unexpected Source
Every morning at 6 a.m., the feeder automatically played his voice saying, “Wake up, you unemployed little goblin, your government assistance has arrived.”
It had originally been recorded as a joke for his own cat. Somehow, he never thought about the possibility of another person hearing it.
The first morning after giving the feeder away, his neighbor heard the voice and immediately assumed someone was talking through her baby monitor.
Understandably, that was unsettling.
The next morning, the same thing happened.
She unplugged the baby monitor, only to hear the mysterious voice again. Now she was convinced someone might actually be inside her apartment.
So she started checking the rooms.
Imagine waking up at six in the morning, hearing an unfamiliar man’s voice insulting your cat, unplugging your electronics, and then realizing the voice is still coming from somewhere in your home.
Eventually, she discovered the source.
She stood near the cat feeder at exactly 6 a.m. and finally watched it deliver its strange little message.
The mystery was solved.
Unfortunately, so was the identity of the person responsible.
The Most Awkward Elevator Ride Ever
The neighbor eventually knocked on his door, holding the feeder and asking why his voice was insulting her cat before sunrise.
At that point, there was really no defense.
He had completely forgotten the recording was still there. He explained what had happened, deleted the message, and presumably hoped the whole incident would disappear from both of their memories.
It probably won’t.
Now they occasionally run into each other in the elevator, both knowing that she spent multiple mornings investigating her apartment because she thought someone had somehow gotten inside.
For him, the worst part is probably knowing that his neighbor now associates his voice with a 6 a.m. feline insult.
It is hard to make a good first impression after accidentally haunting someone’s apartment with a talking cat feeder.
Why Small Jokes Can Become Surprisingly Confusing
There is something especially funny about this story because nobody actually intended for anything bad to happen.
The feeder wasn’t planted as a prank. He didn’t secretly program it after giving it away. He simply forgot that the recording existed.
That distinction matters.
Psychologist Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne’s Psychology Today work on humor and social relationships discusses how humor can help people connect, but humor also depends heavily on context and on whether the people involved share the same expectations. A joke that is perfectly normal between friends can sound completely different when it comes from an unexpected person in an unexpected situation.
That is essentially what happened here. The recording was harmless in its original context, but hearing an unknown man’s voice inside your apartment at dawn is a very different experience.
The neighbor also had no way of knowing it was an old joke. From her perspective, the situation was genuinely bizarre.
Still, once she discovered the truth, the entire mystery became the kind of ridiculous story that is probably destined to be remembered for years.
Final Thoughts
The neighbor probably wasn’t thrilled about being woken up by a mysterious voice, but the whole situation seems much more like an unfortunate technological prank than an actual TIFU catastrophe.
The real lesson is simple: before giving away anything with memory, check what you’ve left stored on it.
Otherwise, your old cat might continue representing you long after you’ve forgotten about him.
And somewhere in that building, there is now a cat who has officially been called an unemployed little goblin by a stranger before breakfast.
