She helped me up, one-handed, still holding the cat. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment,” I said, and leaned on the kitchen counter. “Bit of a headache though.”

She put the cat on the counter next to me. “Hold on, hon. I’ve got some Tylenol in the bathroom.”

As soon as she left, the cat said, “Well, I guess that solves that.”

“Solves what?” I said, gaping.

“You know, there’s a famous experiment: Schroedinger’s Husband,” said the cat. “You put a husband alone in a kitchen with a broken toaster. He starts to fix it without unplugging the damn thing, and zip! zap! electricity! Now until his wife walks into the kitchen, is he alive? Or dead?”

“Alive, I hope.” I fervently hoped I was alive, but there was a cat talking to me. That left the issue a little vague in my head.

“Your wife certainly seems to think so,” said the cat.

My wife walked in and the cat shut his mouth primly.

“That cat was talking to me,” I said. “It said I might be dead.”

“We need to call a doctor,” said my wife.