A guy calls his brother who is house-sitting for him to check in on things...

[HopeHoops]

He asks, "so, how's the house doing?"

His brother says, "oh fine. No problems. Everything's doing great."

Then he asks, "and how's my cat doing?"

"Oh he's dead."

"WHAT? He's dead? What happened?"

His brother answers, "he fell off the roof and died. He's dead."

"Couldn't you have broken the news to me a little more gently than just blurting out 'he's dead'?"

"Like how?"

"You could have eased into it by saying, you know, something like the cat was playing on the roof and he took off chasing a squirrel and fell off. The vet tried everything but couldn't save him. I'm really sorry."

"Yeah, I guess I could have done that. Sorry."

"Okay, I can handle it. My cat's dead. That's how it goes. I'll get over it. So, how's Grandma doing?"

"Well," his brother replies, "Grandma was playing on the roof..."