Lol, funny. Speaking of cats.......
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Guide to Humans for Cats
1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans?
So you've decided to get yourself a human being. In doing so, you've joined the millions of other cats who have acquired these strange and often frustrating creatures. There will be any number of times, during the course of your association with humans, when you will wonder why you have bothered to grace them with your presence.
What's so great about humans, anyway? Why not just hang around with other cats? Our greatest philosophers have struggled with this question for centuries, but the answer is actually rather simple:
THEY HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS.
Which makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing television stations and other activities that we, despite our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves. True, chimps, orangutans and lemurs also have opposable thumbs, but they are nowhere as easy to train.
2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention
Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more important activities than taking care of your immediate needs, such as conducting business, spending time with their families or even sleeping. Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this work to your advantage by pestering your human at the moment it is the busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will do whatever you want it to do, just to get you out of its hair. Not coincidentally, human teenagers follow this same practice.
Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human to do what you want:
Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper in front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is more important than you. They will often offer you a snack to lure you away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp product at every opportunity. This practice also works well with computer keyboards, remote controls, car keys and small children.
Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's "golden time" is between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning. If you paw at your human's sleeping face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want. You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their attention; remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human from getting suspicious.
3. Punishing Your Human Being
Sometimes, despite your best training efforts, your human will stubbornly resist bending to your whim. In these extreme circumstances, you may have to punish your human. Obvious punishments, such as scratching furniture or eating household plants, are likely to backfire; the unsophisticated humans are likely to misinterpret the activities and then try to discipline YOU. Instead, we offer these subtle but nonetheless effective alternatives:
* Use the cat box during an important formal dinner.
* Stare impassively at your human while it is attempting a romantic interlude.
* Stand over an important piece of electronic equipment and feign a hairball attack.
* After your human has watched a particularly disturbing horror film, stand by the hall closet and then slowly back away, hissing and yowling.
* While your human is sleeping, lie on its face.
4. Rewarding Your Human: Should Your Gift Still Be Alive?
The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting humans with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled animal. Some believe that humans prefer these gifts already dead, while others maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring cricket or rodent just as much as we do, given their jumpy and playful movements in picking the creatures up after they've been presented.
After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend the following: cold-blooded animals (large insects, frogs, lizards, garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should be presented dead, while warm-blooded animals (birds, rodents, your neighbor's Pomeranian) are better still living. When you see the expression on your human's face, you'll know it's worth it.
5. How Long Should You Keep Your Human?
You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives. The other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching, though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are worth living with) are pretty much the same. But what do you expect? They're humans, after all. Opposable thumbs will only take you so far.
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How to Bathe a Cat
1. Thoroughly clean the toilet.
2. Add the required amount of shampoo to the toilet water, and have both lids lifted.
3. Obtain the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
4.In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids you may need to stand on the lid so that he cannot escape).
CAUTION: Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge, as his paws will be reaching out for any purchase they can find.
5. Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a "power wash and rinse" which I have found to be quite effective.
6. Have someone open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.
7. Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
8. The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside where he will dry himself.
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Rules for cats who have a house to run
I. DOORS: Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get a door opened, stand on hind legs and scratch the frame. You may also reach under the door and pull clothing towards you; silks get the quickest reaction. Once the door is opened, it is not necessary to use it. After you have ordered an "outside" door opened, stand halfway in and out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather, when it's raining or snowing, or during the height of the mosquito season. Swinging doors must be avoided at all costs.
II. CHAIRS AND RUGS: If you have to urp, get to an overstuffed chair quickly. If you cannot manage this in time, get to an Oriental rug. If there are no Oriental rugs, [filtered] is a good substitute. When urping on [filtered], be sure you project; it is a must that it stretch for as long as a human's bare foot.
III. BATHROOMS: Always accompany guests to the bathroom. (See Rule I.) It is not necessary to do anything -- just sit and stare.
IV. HELPING: If one of your humans is engaged in an activity and the other is idle, stay with the busy one. This is called "helping"; humans are known to refer to it as "hampering". The following are the rules for "helping":
a) When supervising cooking, sit just behind the left heel of the cook.You cannot be seen and thereby stand a better chance of being stepped on and then picked up and comforted.
b) For book readers, get in close under the chin, between eyes and book, unless you can lie across the book itself.
c) For knitting projects or paperwork, lie on the work in the most appropriate manner so as to obscure as much of the work or at least the most important part. Pretend to doze, but every so often reach out and slap the pencil or knitting needles. The worker may try to distract you; ignore it. Remember, the aim is to hamper work. Embroidery and needlepoint projects make great hammocks in spite of what the humans may tell you.
d) For people paying bills (monthly activity) or working on income taxes or Christmas cards (annual activity), keep in mind the aim - - to help! First, sit on the paper being worked on. When dislodged, watch sadly from the side of the table. When activity proceeds nicely, roll around on the papers, scattering them to the best of your ability. After being removed for the second time, push pens, pencils, and erasers off the table, one at a time.
e) When a human is holding the newspaper in front of him/her, be sure to jump on the back of the paper. They love to jump.
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A Cat's New Year's Resolutions
My human will never let me eat her pet hamster, and I am at peace with that.
I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie.
I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.
I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink's drain.
I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I'm getting plenty of roughage.
I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur.)
I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.
I will not fish out my human's partial plate from the glass so that the dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human. (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.)
I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.
I will not drag dirty socks up from the basement in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs (Burmese LOUD yowling) so that my human can admire my "kill."
I will not perch on my human's chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.
We will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over any humans' bed while they're trying to sleep.
Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.
I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.
I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.
I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.
I will not complain that my bottom is wet and that I am thirsty after sitting in my water bowl.
I will not intrude on my human's candle-lit bubble bath and singe my bottom.
I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.
If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.
It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.
When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot. This hurts, and my scream scares my human.
When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house. It is not necessary to check every door.
Birds do not come from the bird feeder. I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.
I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.
I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.
The dog can see me coming when I stalk her. She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls. That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.
Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years. I don't have to act as if I've just discovered the Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my window.
I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.
When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.
I will not swat my human's head repeatedly when she's on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.
When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.
Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.
I am a walking static generator. My human doesn't need my help installing a new board in her computer.
I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.
I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.
I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emiognaioerp ga3qi4 taija3tgv aa35 a.
Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters), stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.
I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren't laughing so hard.
I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.
The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.
I will not put a live mole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.
I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.
I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.
I will learn to relax at the vet's office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that's there now like "MEAN!!" "BITER!!!" and "GET HELP!!!!!"
I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.
I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.
If I MUST claw my human, I will not do it in such a fashion that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.
If I must give a present to my human's overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a big live cockroach, even if it isn't as tasty.
I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea. I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards. I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub. And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunches when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.
A warm pepperoni pizza is not a good place for a nap.
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1 - Law of Cat Inertia
A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force - such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse.
2 - Law of Cat Motion
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.
3 - Law of Cat Magnetism
All blue blazers and black sweaters attract cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric.
4 - Law of Cat Thermodynamics
Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat, in which case all heat flows to the cat.
5 - Law of Cat Stretching
A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken.
6 - Law of Cat Sleeping
All cats must sleep with people whenever possible, in a position as uncomfortable for the people involved as is possible for the cat.
7 - Law of Cat Elongation
A cat can make her body long enough to reach just about any counter top that has anything remotely interesting on it.
8 - Law of Cat Acceleration
A cat will accelerate at a constant rate, until he gets good and ready to stop.
9 - Law of Dinner Table Attendance
Cats must attend all meals when anything good is served.
10 - Law of Rug Configuration
No rug may remain in its naturally flat state for very long.
11 - Law of Obedience Resistance
A cat's resistance varies in proportion to a human's desire for her to do something.
12 - First Law of Energy Conservation
Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will, therefore, use as little energy as possible.
13 - Second Law of Energy Conservation
Cats also know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping.
14 - Law of Refrigerator Observation
If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.
15 - Law of Electric Blanket Attraction
Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light.
16 - Law of Random Comfort Seeking
A cat will always seek, and usually take over, the most comfortable spot in any given room.
17 - Law of Bag / Box Occupancy
All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond.
18 - Law of Cat Embarrassment
A cat's irritation rises in direct proportion to her embarrassment times the amount of human laughter.
19 - Law of Milk Consumption
A cat will drink her weight in milk, squared, just to show you she can.
20 - Law of Furniture Replacement
A cat's desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.
21 - Law of Cat Landing
A cat will always land in the softest place possible.
22 - Law of Fluid Displacement
A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed.
23 - Law of Cat Disinterest
A cat's interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest her.
24 - Law of Pill Rejection
Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity.
25 - Law of Cat Composition
A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn't Matter.
