Rules for Cats
14 ratings since posting on Friday, May 28, 2004|
in Everywhere
(submitted by
Felis is half back
)
|
Overall Rating  based on 14 ratings |
|
|
Advertisement
|
||
|
Excerpts From "A Cat's Guide To Human Beings" 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. - ms , posted 01/08/06 |
|
Too long... Too complicated... Cats don't like to read long-winded crap written by humans. - Skip , posted 10/10/05 |
|
qwite true, all of it, my kitty friends all agree. and request that all humans should be subservient in letting us do our thing and not impede it either. - Matti , posted 08/23/05 |
|
when relating to humans & computers: perhaps not! it's best to not give warning. Humans love the surprise. When they 'seem' to be shoo- ing you, your inkling that they are toying with you... is absolutely correct! When they make alluring patterns with the mouse, this is your green lite for action... be extra persistant, as this is your next level, grasshoppah! >hint> make sure to press as many keys, as you pounce towards the screen (which is the new realm, the human is enticing you to explore). this activity will lead to great edible treats, or even a long sensual massage, if you show the human that you are eager to learn this new lesson in hunting, from a true Mastah. (YES, the upper row of keys are for you to practice your new skills... eventually to graduate to the ability to hit either 'windows' keys on the bottom row- demonstrating your ability to navigate in your new playground). after you tire of what may seem like an eternity of keyboard training, show your interest for multi tasking: play with all of those 'rubber yarn' strands, that seem to be hanging all over the warm humming box. once you've located the end of the strands, don't forget to pull on them with your claws, until the fall to the floor at your whim... show no mercy and go for the kill. bite them! chew 'em good, 'till they're dead! and always remember to present your 'kill' to the human, showing your faithful loyalty (this is guaranteed to get you canned food!) a true 'warrior' parades their prowess, by 'tearing out' on all of the loosely stacked discs and other items that have been staged in the nooks and crannies for the benefit of yours and the Mastah's celebration!!! MEOW!!! [excerpt from the Kung Fu Kitty training manual: 'Hunt & Peck', Keyboarding and More'] - MAHVi , posted 01/14/05 |
|
Definitly someone can read the mind of a cat, this was way too true. - Chris , posted 11/23/04 |
|
Unsu...
|
Soooo True! - Unsubscribed , posted 11/06/04 |
|
i was searching for hammocks and this was the only posting that came up, that's OK.wierd though! - R. , posted 10/25/04 |
|
Are you following the rules?
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 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, shag is a good substitute. When urping on shag, 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 some semi-closed 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. V. WALKING As often as possible, dart quickly and as close as possible in front of the human. Especially effective places to strike are: 1) On stairs, when they have something in their arms; 2) In the dark; and 3) When they first get up in the morning. This exercise helps with improving their coordination skills. VI. BEDTIME Always sleep on the human at night. If there are two (or more) of you, book end the human putting off the greatest heat. They will try and squirm but your sheer numbers and inert bodies will effectively keep them pinned. VII. COMPUTERS 1: Only show interest in computers that are turned ON, the operator will need your help. 2: Monitors are bad for human eyes. It might ruin your owner's sight and cause them to buy less cat food. Always get in between the monitor and the person operating the computer. For best results, stands as close to the monitor as possible. If you are removed, go and sulk in a corner for a minute, then repeat. Look as innocent as possible. 3: Keyboards are great to lie down on. Make yourself as comfortable as possible. Marching over the keyboard several times is fun too. Practice aiming at alt-F4, N, and ctrl-alt-del. 4: Always chase the mouse. Your owner can't blame you for this, since it's your feline instinct to chase mice. 5: Floppy disk make great scratching posts. Nothing beats floppies when it's time to sharpen your nails. - Felis is half back , posted 05/28/04 |
