PSA for cat owners

One of my cats always starts asking for food 2 hours before lunch/dinner time, and he does it as if he was on the brink of starvation. He drills your brain in the hopes of getting food earlier, and I mean drill, he doesn't shut up.

I got one of those automated feeders and flashed it with custom ESP32 firmware so I could tie it in with HomeAssistant and get fancy notifications when it fails to dispense food or it runs out or whatever.
Ofc it also provides a way for me to manually trigger the food dispensal routine, so now I can get scammed from anywhere in the house!
- Which feeder is that?

My cat has been inadvertently conditioned to believe that whenever someone comes home, she’s to be fed. So if my wife gets home from work first, cat gets fed. If I get home after, cat tries to get fed again. My wife & I have to check with each other to make sure the cat’s not playing us.

This makes me so glad my cat grazes on his food throughout the day and doesn't try to eat everything all at once. I only need to fill up his bowl in the morning and he's set for the day.
- Doing that would just lead to all but two or three crunchies thrown up across the floor and then a cat meowing at me for the starvation conditions he lives in.
  Idk why I can’t see through his lies…

I got a cat on a restricted diet (diabetic) and two kittens who get to eat whenever they want. However, we gotta keep the kitten's food away from our toothless old diabetic. Meal time for the kittens happens behind a closed door.
Constantly the kittens are meowing at the door for snacks. We let them in, they have a few bites, they stratch the door to come out, process repeats. We make jokes, "Time for second breakfast", "time for elevensies", and our poor old diabetic cat gets none of it. She gets carefully portioned prescription food twice a day (and an injection).
I always wonder what she thinks. The vet says the diabetes makes her feel hungry all the time, and I believe it. We have to keep the sandwich bread in the pantry or she'll chew through the plastic bag and have some. Or, at least, that's what she would do when she had teeth. We still keep it away from her.
She gets grouchy when we shoo her away from the kitten's magic infinite food room. My socks and ankles have been gummed when she's felt especially unhappy with the food situation.

Mine is like that with pets. Acts like she's the most neglected animal on Earth when you get up after only giving her a 20 minute belly rub.