justginger
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
- Messages
- 3,712
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:
1. 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 assumes the paper is more important than you. It 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 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 obligated to your human for only 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
take you only so far.
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:
1. 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 assumes the paper is more important than you. It 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 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 obligated to your human for only 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
take you only so far.
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