The Meow Mix Jingle Was Used By The CIA To Torture The Recalcitrant

We lived in St. Petersburg and we were going on our first foreign trip. It was to Berlin when I was about 18, me and my mother.  My best friend, Vlada, she was a cat person, she had three cats. She said, “You know, Tatiana, there are special stores in Germany and they actually sell food just for animals, separately.”

I said, “No way. You’re kidding.”

That was a different time. We had cards for food, there was rationing.
And she said, “If you’re going there, you have to bring back some food for my lovely cats.”

And I said, “Of course I will. If it truly exists.” Because I didn’t believe that it existed!

So my mom and I went and we found a pet store, and I remember when we entered and there were lots of cats and all this cat food and I was like, “Oh my God! Mom! Is this real?”

“Yes, so what are we taking?”

Well, I didn’t have much money, so my mom said, “How many cats, three? OK, let’s get three cans.” And I grabbed something like Whiskas or something.

So we went back to Russia, and I’m with my best friend, we’re sitting in her kitchen drinking, celebrating that I returned, finally, and she said, “Did you bring the food for my cats?”

“Yes, here we are.”

And the label was in English and she started reading (her English was better than mine). “Let’s look at the ingredients. What is that, liver? And chicken? Are they serious?”

So we opened it. The aroma and texture was like paté. Glamourous. Exotic.
The cats were meowing, begging, winding through our legs and looking at us, imploringly. “Meow, meow, meow!”

But then Vlada was like, “This is a nice beer. It goes well with chicken and liver.”

We ate every one.