Adjustment

I grew up on Old Earth and have- obviously- taken only one interstellar trip. So when I got here there was a lot of culture shock. See, Old Earth had become such an artifact that very little in the way of new had been added in thousands of years. I was perfectly familiar with the way early 21st century humans would have lived, because I lived that way. Hell, I still do. here, on the other hand...

Like the cars. Big thirsty rides. Lots of petro industry here, the cars run efficiently from a pollution standpoint (precious little exhaust but water). I'd never seen an engine of more than 6 cylinders outside a museum, but now I have two cars, and the small one is a V12. It's considered an economy car. Screaming fast. A lot of tech like that. Animals are another thing. There's hunting and fishing, though it's considered very bad form to wound an animal- but just about every animal has been domesticated through genetics. Sure, a tame housepet lion isn't exactly a lion anymore, but some people have odd fetishes.

Me, I'm happy with a housecat. I ended up with a stray that sat on the hood of my car one day, and claimed me. He seemed perfectly ordinary for over a year until one afternoon, napping off the throes of a particularly nasty hangover, he crawled up on my pillow and loudly said "WER IZ MAH DINNR?

I rolled over, certain it was an hallucination, but he stood on my throbbing coconut and repeated "WER IZ MAH DINNR?"

A little stunned, I wandered out into the kitchen and opened a tin of catfood, put it in his bowl.

I went back to bed and wrote the day off as a bad dream, and tried to forget. And then later in the year I mentioned my cat to a co-worker (this was after Ben had moved out). My co worker said "Oh! Has he started talking yet?"

I forced my mouth closed, unaware that my hallucinations were visible to others, and said- cautiously- "yes".

"It's great when they talk, innit? I mean, I can't imagine how lonely I'd be if not for my kitties"

SO cats here talk. Mine doesn't say much, and it still freaks me a bit when he does, but mostly he tells me when someone has been around when I'm not home, how many times the phone rings while I'm gone, and a lot of "WER IZ MAH DINNR". There were a few more revelations and adjustments I'd have to make, but this was one of the first ones.