I removed the old towel I’d folded and laid out on my desk for the cat/s to sleep on while I’m in the office. It needed to go in the laundry.
This, of course, was the worst thing any human had ever done since we were domesticated many thousands of years ago.
I was glared at continually for twenty minutes.
Finally, I could take it no more and was forced to lay out a new folded towel, fresh from the laundry coset.
Am currently being ignored with extreme prejudice.
This is not my beautiful towel
This is not my beautiful life
It's not the removal of the old towel that is the crime against your feline overlord, although you're on very thin ice. It's the way you didn't compensate them for the removal of the old, comfy, worn in towel by immediately deploying a new, fresh towel in the same spot in order to not interrupt their supurrvision schedule.
I've consulted with my Senior Feline Overlord (the Junior Overlord is outside deploying her solar panels for recharging) and this is their advice:
"Cats are not unreasonable creatures; they understand that while they graciously allow their hoomans to share the house with them, occasionally the hoomans need to execute mild inconveniences in order to ensure the house remains running smoothly in service of the needs of the household's feline masters. All they ask, and it is a small ask in the greater scheme of things, is that when the hoomans are required to execute these mild inconveniences they do their best to ensure that the inconveneince is indeed on the mild end of the spectrum. An agreed upon Spot of Supurrvision needs refreshing? Ensure that the spot is refreshed in a way that ensures minimum disruption to the Supurrvision that is scheduled to take place there. IT'S A SMALL ASK. In return they pledge not to leave a decapitated mouse on your pillow. Quite generous really." 😾
They go on to advise that this will undoubtedly be noted on your performance review, and the efficient deployment of Dreamies or an equivalent treat as a suitably grovelling apology for this faux pas might serve to ameliorate the severity of the judgement that awaits you.
As an aside a Cat Tantrum(tm) really is a sight to behold. Non cat people really don't understand how a creature that's small enough to be tucked under your arm could hold an entire household of apex predators to ransom until they've been on the receiving end of one, at which point they discover that while the creature is small enough to be tucked under your arm, it is also an apex predator that has evolved into its final, perfect form, and the only thing standing between us and world domination by God's perfect killing machine is that they only weigh 5kg (on average) and we have opposable thumbs. There's a reason why dogs were domesticated by humans, and humans were domesticated by cats 🤷♀️