Last week, the U.S. State Department sent out an email titled “meeting” which contained the picture you see above, of a cute tabby cat in a blue Cookie Monster onesie with a plate of chocolate chip cookies on its lap. The picture was called “Cat pajama-jam.”
“Wow,” you’re probably thinking, “That Cat pajama-jam seems like a pretty high-level meeting where important, geopolitical topics would be discussed.” It does. Unfortunately, the invitation turned out to be fake, and the U.S. Embassy in Canberra, Australia, apologized on behalf of the State Department, saying the email was merely a “training error.”
“Sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping to attend this ‘cat pajama-jam’ party, but such an event falls well outside our area of expertise,” U.S. Mission to Australia public affairs counsellor Gavin Sundwall wrote in an email two days later, according to Buzzfeed News. “It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform.”
It is unclear how many people received the email, which was originally reported on by the Australian Associated Press. In addition to the very good picture, the email reportedly included a paragraph of Latin text, and an RSVP button which recipients presumably smashed “Yes” on as soon as they read the words “Cat pajama-jam.”
Per Mashable, the picture appears to have been taken by a Melbourne woman named Jennifer Stewart, who dresses her cats in onesies for pictures on her Instagram account @my_furry_babies, which has over 66,000 followers.
So far, the cat in the picture has not commented on the state of U.S. foreign relations.
