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I'm going to punish the cat.

As I reach from my seat at the table to retrieve a rolled-up newspaper on a nearby shelf, I have to be careful not to let the newspaper rustle or the cat will bolt. Once she figures out that corporal discipline is on the way, there's no catching her.

I can tell from the way she's perched on the counter that she's about to jump onto the table and try to drink my coffee. She's not allowed to drink my coffee for several reasons. First, it's mine. I've forgotten all the lessons I got on sharing in pre-school. Second, it's gross to drink after an animal that can lick its entire body and does so a daily basis. Third, if she drinks the coffee she will be wired for hours.

She'll tear around the house, pouncing on passersby, singing her whiskers on the candles, knocking things off shelves, and nipping at the toes of any of our guests who happen to be wearing sandals. She will enter a state of euphoria and heightened alertness, after which she'll finally collapse into a furry heaving heap atop her scratching post. She's a recreational caffeine user, a feline version of those people who supplement their crystal meth with a couple cans of Red Bull, and it's my job as a responsible human being to help her break free of this vicious cycle of destructive hedonism.

She is long and sleek, a Siamese. She crouches low and creeps around when she wants to steal your food or beverages, as if a lower profile would somehow disguise her cream-colored body as she gingerly sneaks onto the dark hardwood dining room table. She resembles a seal-point weasel.

"Him want to drink your coffee," chuckles Mavis, one of our guests for the evening. Mavis is an old Jamaican lady who is a friend of the family. I know for a fact that she keeps a flask of Jack Daniels in her purse, but I think it best to refrain from announcing this at the table.

Her pronouns bother me. Now, I don't mind the incorrect use of the objective case pronoun, as in "him want to drink your coffee." I hear that lots of Jamaicans say things like that. I'm perfectly tolerant of that. I mean, any orthodox grammar textbook would condemn such usage, but who am I to judge? I don't mind a little dialectical variation here and there. Hang prescriptive grammar.

What bothers me is the fact that the masculine pronoun was used. "Him" is not a gender-neutral pronoun. The cat is a female. I have explained this to Mavis on numerous occasions.

"Ha ha, Mavis. Just so you know, the cat's a she."

"Um, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the cat is not a he."

"Mavis. The cat is a girl. A she-cat. Woman. Wooh-mahn. Female. The kind that makes kittens. Sugar and spice. XX chromosomes. From Venus, not Mars."

The him/her dichotomy is not a terribly difficult concept. Mavis has been around for 67 years. She has given birth on seven separate occasions. One would hope that by now she would have at least a rudimentary grasp on the difference between male and female. There are boy cats, there are girl cats. This one is a girl cat.

I refuse to believe that I'm merely being petty about this issue. I'm just concerned with linguistic precision. Is it such a bad thing for me to desire clear communication?

While I was playing out this dialogue in my head the cat dipped her head into my coffee cup and lapped up the remaining half-inch of coffee in the cup. For the remainder of the evening she raced around the house, assaulting our houseguests and breaking anything fragile that came into her path. One vase was broken and she made my left pinky toe bleed.

Meanwhile, the feminine pronoun issue was left unresolved. Mavis had to leave early and I was busy chasing the cat with a blowgun and tranquilizer darts. Maybe another time. Maybe Mavis is a visual learner. I'll have diagrams and charts ready next time she visits.