The American embassy in Canberra, Australia, has apologised after the US State Department mistakenly sent an email invitation with a picture of a cat dressed in Cookie Monster pyjamas.
The email was titled “Meeting”, the Australian Associated Press reported, and featured a tabby cat wearing the blue pyjamas with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies on its lap, and the caption “cat pajama-jam”.
It’s unknown how many people the email was sent to, but it was accompanied by a section of Latin and an option to RSVP.
The original photo was taken by 32-year-old Australian Jennifer Stewart, for her Instagram and Facebook page My Furry Babies, and the cat pictured is her tabby Joey.
“I’m so happy to see Joey’s photo being shared,” Jennifer told the Press Association. “It’s really quite funny though.”
Pictures of Joey dressed up have been hugely popular online since Jennifer first posted the Cookie Monster photo in 2015, with many adding captions to the meme.
The US embassy said the email was a “training error”, but Jennifer thinks otherwise.
“Someone’s been looking at cute photos online instead of working,” she laughed.
Gavin Sundwall, US Mission to Australia public affairs counsellor, showed he saw the funny side in his apology.
“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,” he wrote in a follow-up email.
“It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform.”
Joey shares the spotlight on Jennifer’s channel with her other pets, Rosie the Jack Russell, another tabby called Morrison, and Cleo the Siamese.
If you’d like to see more from Jennifer’s gang of pets, check out their pages on Instagram or Facebook.
