Friday, October 18, 2013

Cell phones and cool cats. Puss Puss speaks out.

Dear George,
Really, I am at my wit’s end. As you know, my human female has always been a challenging subject—fascinating for research, terrible in the service department. And it’s gotten worse! This past weekend, the time was 5:30—in the morning!—and there was no sign of a forthcoming meal. Naturally, I went to awaken the humans to demand service. I opened their bedroom door, jumped up on the bedside table, and poked, prodded, and meowed plaintively; but I got no response. I was motivated only by concern: I could have starved to death, a circumstance which I find extremely concerning.
While desperately trying to awaken the human female, I noticed her cell phone on the bedside table. I have examined this device before, and find that it changes pictures interestingly when prodded. Also, I have heard the female vocalizing on it in the past, apparently to other humans. In my moment of need, I reasoned that if humans communicate with phones, perhaps I could use this phone to remotely give other humans orders to come and feed me—which would be useful. So, I decided to use my human female’s cell phone to signal for help.
Unfortunately, the bald thumbist prejudice with which these devices are constructed renders them difficult to use by higher beings who lack apelike grip hooks on their limbs. In frustration, I poked at the phone, and I prodded it; and all I succeeded in arriving at was something called a “Facebook page,” where there happened to be displayed an annoying photograph of a cake. But I noticed something: if you don’t like the pictures of cakes or humans or what have you that are on these “pages,” there’s a little button you can poke which reports it as “inappropriate”—presumably to some central authority, which logically must signal some official humans to come and take away the human who put the offending picture there. I was angry, George, and I was hungry, and I have had years of slow and shoddy service from this human female. So I did it. I pushed the “report” button, and then sat back comfortably on the phone to wait for my miscreant humans to be taken away for
neglecting me.
Not only did no-one show up to take these humans away, but the stupid phone has an alarm in it, which makes it vibrate at a certain time. I was sitting upon the phone, awaiting justice, when this alarm went off. You can imagine, George, that my distress was immediate and complete. I later needed an extra meal and a nap in the closet to recover from the shock. And it turns out that all that I reported was the stupid picture of the stupid cake, a mistake which the human female later and with great embarrassment sorted out with the cake’s owner.
So here it is: I am at the end of my rope. I don’t think these humans can be turned into decent servants, years of effort notwithstanding; and reporting the deadbeats I live with to whatever authorities monitor the cake pages proved to be an exercise in futility. George, help me: is there some way I can bend the humans’ technology to my will, use it to re-home the lot of them (two humans, their human kitten, and their ridiculous little dogs), and keep the house for myself? It is, after all, my territory, and I have worked long and hard getting it to smell and look just so. Can I somehow phone in an order for another complete human staff to come to me, instead of me going to them, and have them provide me with meals and regular litter box changes, not to mention an unending supply of tuna-flavored Pounce? There is some Pounce left, in the kitchen, but the supply is down to two full bottles and I think that this is a dangerously low level. Maybe there is a central authority I can
ring up for more Pounce?
George, I rely upon your calm feline guidance to help me determine a course of action. I anxiously await your advice. Time is of the essence! I haven’t eaten in nearly an hour.

Neglectedly,
Puss-Puss
.

Dear Puss-Puss,
I am in awe of you. You are the first cat I know who has successfully used Facebook. And what was wrong with labelling a human cake inappropriate? It surely was. Now a photo of a bowl full of cat food or even a mouse would have been appropriate. Don't give up. Purrsue this excursion into social networking further.
Although we naturally want to rehome unsatisfactory humans, it is usually easier for us cat flap cats to rehome ourselves. But not in a hurry. First explore the neighbourhood, visit various humans, and assess whether they would make better pets than your own. This will involve setting up new territory which is a massive bore.
Why not see if you can progress further. Get on to twitter and start tweeting your dilemma to the outside world. This might shame them into better behaviour. I see you have already purrsuaded your human to post about you on the Cats Behaving Badly Facebook page. Go further: set up your own Facebook page and start letting the world know about your awful humans.
And congratulations on a feline first. Keep poking that mobile phone.
George.

8 comments:

  1. Puss-Puss, you are a fine cat! But don't become addicted to any electronic device or you'll become a FAT CAT! Look at the human kittens today - most of them are obese! Please continue with your moussing and training your humans and, of course, running around.
    Diego

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  2. Puss-Puss, my friend, you have to rehome at my place at once. My humans don't have kittens or dogs; they don't even have cable TV. My mummy doesn't have a mobile device and my daddy has one but I think the only purpose for it is to "speak" with mummy in the morning. That "thing" makes a noise every morning at the same time and I can hear mummy mumbling something. And this goes on every 10 minutes for about 1/2 hour after that mummy says "ok, ok!. A bit later I can hear the shower! I think that device is telling her to get up and take a shower (I wonder why since mummy is not smelly):-) This thing we have definitely doesn't display any cakes. Plus my humans, especially my daddy, are trained to perfection; you want a meal at 3 am? he's up to it. 4 am? He's game! Just think about it!
    Love & hugs
    Fluffy

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  3. Puss-Puss, you are our hero :-)
    Blackie

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  4. Poor Puss-Puss, lazy sleeping apes, vibrating phones and dogs as well! George is right, it could be time to find another home.

    I would whap the phone to the floor, or perhaps pee on it. Apes are too easily distracted by their silly devices.

    You could try training the apes by inserting just one claw up a sleeping ape nostril to wake them on time. This works a treat usually. Sticking your nose into an ape nostril works too, or maybe some raspy tongue action on their eyelids. Placing your bum on an ape nose works but for some reason apes find this disturbing but soon fall into line, desperate to avoid our lovely, fragrant backsides.

    Failing all that, it sounds like Fluffy has the ideal home ready for you.

    Puss-Puss, thank you so much for your kind words when we lost Gerry, it meant a lot to us all here.

    Luff from Mungo

    PS:

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  5. If you lick that device's screen can you taste the cake?
    I wonder since I've never seen such device to show treats & cakes.
    Minnie

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  6. CAT VictoriaOctober 23, 2013

    Did you try meowing loud in their ears? It might work!
    CAT Victoria

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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Help for cats whose humans show behaviour problems.

This blog is devoted to the study of human behaviour. We cats, who live with this sometimes unpredictable and always feeble minded species, can benefit from seeing their behaviour in its proper scientific context. The study of feline dilemmas, training problems, and difficulties with humans, can only benefit all of us. All of us train our humans - to buy the right food, for instance, but many of us do not have knowledge of how to improve our training methods. The human species is obviously not as intelligent as the cat, but nevertheless can learn quite a lot - if properly managed. Topics of interest include the use of claw and order, purring as a human reward, rubbing your human up the right way, when to bite, spraying as a method of making our wishes known, ignoring the human, human harassment, human inattention and sheer human stupidity. I welcome your questions. Photos can be sent via my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com This blog has been chosen as one of the top 50 feline blogs by Online VetTechprogramms.org