THE PRACTICE CORNER — For the better part of Thursday afternoon, ShatNews correspondent Liam sat on the living room floor, back against the speaker cabinet, and gave the single most committed performance of sustained disinterest this newsroom has ever documented.
He was building something in Roblox. He did not stop.
What Liam did not observe — what he could not have observed, given that observing anything other than the screen was not on the table — was that both household cats had, over the same period, organized a coordinated campaign to obtain his attention. The campaign failed completely. This is its record.
PHASE ONE: PROXIMITY. Bean opened by lying down directly in front of the subject, approximately three feet away, in the exact center of his field of view. He held the position for several minutes. The subject's field of view, at that time, contained only a phone. Bean was not in it. Bean has never, during a Roblox session, been in it.
PHASE TWO: THE BOX. Atticus escalated by mounting the large cardboard box positioned between himself and the correspondent — the box the amp and speaker cabinet's newest companion arrived in — and staring at Liam directly, at close range, with the patience of a cat who fully expects to be acknowledged and is prepared to wait.
PHASE THREE: PHYSICAL CONTACT. When staring produced nothing, the campaign moved to direct engagement. Sources confirm at least one cat made physical contact with the correspondent's leg. The correspondent adjusted his grip on the phone. This is believed to be the closest the campaign ever came to success.
It was not close.
ShatNews has reviewed the full tape. At no point across the entire episode does the subject look up. He does not look up for Bean. He does not look up for Atticus. He does not look up when a nine-pound cat climbs a box eighteen inches from his face and commits, visibly, to a staring contest that has only one participant.
Media analysts describe the performance as "generational." One noted that most professionals, placed in a room with two cats actively demanding attention, will crack within ninety seconds. "Liam went the distance," the analyst said. "He was building something. When a child is building something in Roblox, the house could be on fire. The cats learned this the hard way. The cats learn it every day."
Reached for comment, Liam looked up briefly, said "what," confirmed he had not noticed any cats, and returned to Roblox. His office — he does not have an office; he is nine — declined to elaborate.
The cats' offices issued a joint statement, their first coordinated action since the historic summit, describing the correspondent as "unreachable" and "the hardest audience in the household." Both parties have reportedly redirected their efforts toward the one target in this house that has never once failed to look up: the sound of the cabinet opening in the kitchen.
Correspondent Finnley, who filmed the episode in its entirety, is understood to be the only member of the newsroom who witnessed it, on the grounds that he was the only one not in Roblox.