When I was a child, the special family treat was dinner at the smörgåsbord, where a vast turntable at one end of the room revolved slowly to reveal different dishes, steadily replenished in the invisible kitchen. A young person could have as many, say, black olives as she wanted, instead of the grim simplicity served at home (hamburgers, hot dogs, canned corn beef, spaghetti, etcetera, with London broil and a salad with artichoke hearts for special guests).

I am currently attempting to provide a smörgåsbord of sorts for my cat Uncle Louie.

You see, he and I have been engaging in a guerrilla war, where he tries to make me feed him and I try to be strong. More often than not, he wins. The vet informed me that he therefore had gained another pound, and she suggested an automatic wet food feeder.

The feeder has a dish with three indentations in it, like a TV dinner tray (the other kind of grim treat we occasionally had at home when I was a child). The machine is gently refrigerated and very sleek. Theoretically, a person fills the indentations with canned cat food, closes the lid, and programs three feeding times in a phone app. Theoretically, at feeding time, the machine goes “ding!” and grandly opens a bay, whereupon, again theoretically, Louie trots over and feasts on greasy wet meat products without the necessity of him having to wail, pick at me, stare meaningfully into my eyes, chase his tail next to my feet, or trot repeatedly into the kitchen for hours at a time.

We are now in week two, and I think we have conclusively demonstrated that (a) Uncle Louie is both dumb as a rock and marvelously stubborn (b) design failures exist (c) I am frail as hell when confronted by cat hunger.

For the first few days, when the bell went off, Louie startled, put his ears back, and jumped down out of my lap, his stubby tail swishing. He stared all about him, utterly ignoring the slow hum of the machine opening.

I had to get up, walk slowly toward the kitchen, coax him in my softest voice, and (often) physically pick him up and put his face in the food. I did this for several days.

Well, I admit I’m lying. What actually happened was I slowly chased him all around the dining table while he tried persistently to avoid going into the kitchen. After I caught him and aimed him at the tray, when I let go, he would run back under the dining table.

I don’t think he has much sense of smell.

He can look at food that is literally a quarter inch from his nose, and then pull away and circle the house, telling me how hungry he is.

Gradually, he started to get the idea. I didn’t have to walk as far into the kitchen, and I only had to point out the food to him every other time. On the fifth day, when the bell went off, he slowly and grandly strolled into the kitchen all by himself, approached the feeder with trepidation, and ate. I rejoiced. Perhaps it was working.

Unfortunately, he had not learned to connect the bell with food, not exactly. What he had done was connect my presence on the first floor plus the bell with food. If I am not in the house, the bell means nothing.

I can see it in my mind. The bell goes “ding!,” the full tray slowly trundles into sight, and Louie reclines soulfully somewhere else entirely, thinking about how very hungry he is, and not moving an inch.

When I return, he comes and tells me he has never eaten. He is very sad. I am very sad, because my cat is thick in the head.

This would be tolerable except that there is no way I can go back and edit that meal once its window has passed. No, the meal has passed, in the calculation of the app, and may never be revisited; if I want him to eat, and I instruct the app to open, that means we are now on the next meal. The missed food sits in the (luckily, refrigerated) tray, never to be released to the light.

Further, if he misses a meal, the app won’t let me program another meal in between the missed one and the next one, because the times are too close together.

I am not sure the designer has ever owned a cat.

If I want Louie to eat that particular meal, I have to take the round tray out of the damn machine, scrape the ignored food onto a dish, and feed him directly, which misses the damned point of separating me from food in his brain.

Otherwise, I have to start the next programmed meal, and the ignored food sits in the depths of the machine, glistening faintly, nicely refrigerated.

I bought an extra tray for the machine, luckily, because otherwise late at night I would be trying to perform logistics around washing, scraping food into the dish, and not disappointing my ridiculous animal. He is disappointed enough as it is, because when I fill the tray for the next day, I am (this needs to be pointed out forcefully) opening a can and not giving him any.

For several days now, I have been out of the house when his afternoon meal presents itself, and so he and I are both very confused. All appearances aside and despite considerable expense, he informs me that he is starving to death.

Therefore, I fed Uncle Louie an entire impromptu extra can of food last night, because even if he is an implacable, oddly shaped, furry little tub of predator, he is my little boy.

I am starting the process all over again today. This morning, he trotted into the kitchen and ate his breakfast like a very good boy after the feeder sounded its alarm. I have programmed his next meal to be available after I get home from all my errands. I live in hope, and so does Louie.