The U.S. Embassy in Canberra, Australia has apologized after the U.S. Department of State mistakenly sent an email invite featuring a photo of a cat wearing a Cookie Monster onesie.
The embassy apologized on behalf of the state department for a “training error” that resulted in the photo of the cat wearing the Cookie Monster outfit and holding a plate of chocolate chip cookies. It was sent out to an undisclosed number of recipients, Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported Sunday.
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The email was titled “meeting” and featured a title “cat pajama-jam” underneath the photo of the tabby cat.
According to the AAP, U.S. Mission to Australia public affairs counsellor Gavin Sundwall issued an apology saying there was no planned pyjama party.
“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 said. “It was a training error made by one of our new staff testing out our email newsletter platform.”
The U.S. Embassy in New Zealand poked fun at its Aussie counterpart, tweeting a GIF of a cat working away on a laptop.
“We are actually LOLing here in NZ,” the embassy wrote.
Here’s a look at some of the reaction:
The spokesperson said “strong new management controls” would be implemented to prevent any repeat mistakes.