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1. DOORS: Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get door opened stand on hind legs and hammer with forepaws. Once a door is opened, it is not necessary to use it. After you have ordered an outside door open, stand halfway in and out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather, rain, snow or mosquito season. Swinging doors are to be avoided at all costs. 2. CHAIRS AND RUGS: If you have to throw up, get to a chair quickly. If you cannot manage in time, get to an Oriental rug. If there is no Oriental rug, shag is good. When throwing up on the carpet, make sure you back up so that it is as long as the human's bare foot. Never throw up on linoleum as it is too easy to clean. Timing for throwing up is all important. Opportune moments include any time that guests are present (especially if a meal is being served), or when your people are amorously involved. If the middle of the night is the chosen time, make sure it lands in a direct path between the bed and the bathroom and preferably in a dark location. 3. BATHROOMS: Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything - just sit and stare. If you choose to use this as an opportunity to gain attention by rubbing across the person's legs, be careful of the positioning of your tail, as it may be unpleasant to clean later. When a person is involved in early morning shaving or face-painting, be sure to knock their little bottles off the edge of the sink, but be prepared to exit in haste, as some people are quite testy at this time of the day. When a person is getting out of the shower, be sure to energetically rub against his/her legs, shedding as much as possible in the process. If it is possible to lay on his/her towel while she/he is in the shower, do so. This will ensure more effective distribution of any shed fur. 4. HAMPERING: If one of your humans is engaged in some close activity and the other is idle, stay with the busy one. This is called "helping" otherwise known as "hampering". Following are the rules for 'hampering": 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 hamper! 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. 5. WALKING: As often as possible, dart quickly and as close as possible in front of the human especially on stairs, when they have something in their arms, in the dark and when they first get up in the morning. This will help their coordination skills. Become skilled at stepping in front of the person and then walking slightly slower then they do or laying down in the place that they are about to plant their foot. Be sure to have their full attention when you do this however or serious physical pain could result. In dark hallways, try to blend in with your surroundings, while still remaining in a place where you're likely to be stepped on. If a person is about to actually step on you and hasn't yet seen you, be sure to meow so that he/she will know you're there. Don't move out of the way. The ensuing clamor to avoid you can be quite amusing. 6. BEDTIME: Always sleep on the human at night so he/she cannot move around. If the person will not allow you to sleep directly on him/her, sleep in very close contact with him/her so that when he/she shifts during the night, you can take up that much more of the bed. Multiple cats holding responsibility over one household can usually end up with more than 80% of the bed during the course of one night. Humans will have an especially hard time sleeping (and therefore will pay more attention to you) if you crawl under the covers and start licking the nearest bare skin. Any skin near the person's belly is especially effective. In the event that getting under the covers is not a possibility, purring loudly in the person's ear usually elicits similar results. Jokes Index Click to return to the homepage. |