Excerpts: 'A Cat's Guide To Human Beings'

[Soldier4Christ]

 Excerpts: 'A Cat's Guide To Human Beings'


   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 disembowelled 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 neighbour'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.

[Yoyostick]

And people wonder why I like dogs . . .

[Yoyostick]

I think that guide might also include a warning about participating in the human's vices . . .

[Soldier4Christ]

I think that guide might also include a warning about participating in the human's vices . . .

[TalkerCat]

TalkerCat here!  My "spirit" comes from THE LORD!    Ain't no HIGH like the HIGH of  SALVATION!   ~ meow~

=^..^=

[Amorus]

I believe that my two cats have acquired this hand book.  Now if I could only locate and destroy it.  I see under section three they have forgotten to add "play with the spring loaded door stopper for the entire night."  They seem so fascinated with the nose it makes. 

[Soldier4Christ]

lol  they seem to know to pick the most annoying things for toys.

[Amorus]

Yes, I think they sit at home all day and plan on how to annoy me.  I'm sure it is what they are doing this very second, no wait....they are probably sleeping, tough life you know.

[Soldier4Christ]

If they sleep now they can stay awake to annoy you when you are trying to sleep.

[airIam2worship]

I prefer fish, you feed them once a day, you don't have to walk them 3 times a day, you only have to change the water once a month if that as long as you have a filter and aeration for the tank, they don't make any noise, and when they die you flush them down the toilet. 

And they are fun to watch when they chase each other and dance around. 

[Soldier4Christ]

I prefer fish, you feed them once a day, you don't have to walk them 3 times a day, you only have to change the water once a month if that as long as you have a filter and aeration for the tank, they don't make any noise, and when they die you flush them down the toilet. 

And they are fun to watch when they chase each other and dance around. 

The last time I had a fish tank it was a 100 gal tank. It was so well balanced that I didn't change the water out for two whole years. Besides feeding them all I had to do was change the filter out once every three months. It was an exterior filter so even that was easy. Well I did have to add water once in a while due to evaporation.

[Amorus]

No fish for me, I would much rather be tormented by my cats

[airIam2worship]

The last time I had a fish tank it was a 100 gal tank. It was so well balanced that I didn't change the water out for two whole years. Besides feeding them all I had to do was change the filter out once every three months. It was an exterior filter so even that was easy. Well I did have to add water once in a while due to evaporation.

No fish for me, I would much rather be tormented by my cats

So much easier to take care of, no shedding, no vet bills, no smells, no liter boxes. And best of all no asthma or allergies. 

I guess you might have already figuered out I don't really like cats, at least not in my house. They can be at everybody else's house as long as it's not at mine. I don't hate them, I just prefer not to have them.

[Soldier4Christ]

So much easier to take care of, no shedding, no vet bills, no smells, no liter boxes. And best of all no asthma or allergies. 

I guess you might have already figuered out I don't really like cats, at least not in my house. They can be at everybody else's house as long as it's not at mine. I don't hate them, I just prefer not to have them.

I had over 30 cats at one time. Yes I said THIRTY! That was when my wife and I were young enough to keep up after them. We also had 20 dogs at the same time. The dogs were a whole lot less work. I am glad now that we are down to just one very tiny dog. He is our aid. He gets things for us when we can't. My wife has "dropsy" so he picks things up that she drops and gives them back to her. He also lets us know when someone is at the door (sometimes I wish he wouldn't do that though).   

[airIam2worship]

(sometimes I wish he wouldn't do that though).