Mel's Favourites: October 2006 Archives

Strict, Unbending Rules for Dealing with Stray Cats

1. Stray cats will not be fed.

2. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food.

3. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food moistened with a little milk.

4. Stray cats will not be fed anything except dry cat food moistened with warm milk, yummy treats and leftover fish scraps.

5. Stray cats will not be encouraged to make this house their permanent residence.

6. Stray cats will not be petted, played with or picked up and cuddled unnecessarily.

7. Stray cats that are petted, played with, picked up and cuddled will absolutely not be given a name.

8. Stray cats with or without a name will not be allowed inside the house at any time.

9. Stray cats will not be allowed inside the house except at certain times.

10. Stray cats will not be allowed inside the house except on days ending in "y".

11. Stray cats allowed inside will not be permitted to jump up on or sharpen their claws on the furniture.

12. Stray cats will not be permitted to jump up on, or sharpen claws on the really good furniture.

13. Stray cats will be permitted on all furniture but must sharpen claws on new $114.99 sisal-rope cat-scratching post with three perches.

14. Stray cats will answer the call of nature outdoors in the sand.

15. Stray cats will answer the call of nature in the three-piece, high-impact plastic tray filled with Fresh 'n' Sweet kitty litter.

16. Stray cats will answer the call of nature in the hooded litter pan with a three-panel privacy screen and plenty of head room.

17. Stray cats will sleep outside.

18. Stray cats will sleep in the garage.

19. Stray cats will sleep in the house.

20. Stray cats will sleep in a cardboard box lined with an old blanket.

21. Stray cats will sleep in the special Kitty-Komfort-Bed with non-allergenic lambs wool pillow.

22. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed.

23. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed, except at the foot.

24. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed under the covers.

25. Stray cats will not be allowed to sleep in our bed under the covers except at the foot.

26. Stray cats will not play on the desk.

27. Stray cats will not play on the desk near the computer.

28. Stray cats are forbidden to walk on the computer keyboard on the desk when the human is asdfjjhhkl;ljfd.;oier' puyykmm4hbdm9lo9j USING IT.

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: The have opposable thumbs. This 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 he assumes is more important than you. Humans 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 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.

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I am lying. On one occasion, I had a valid reason, but lied anyway because the truth was too humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown.

The accident occurred mainly because I conceded to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. Initially the new acquisition was no problem, but one morning I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. "Ed! the garbage disposal is dead. Come reset it."

"You know where the button is," I protested through the shower pitter-patter. "Reset it yourself!"

"I am scared!" she pleaded. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?"

(Pause)

"C'mon, it'll only take a second."

So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping to make a statement about how cowardly her behaviour was, but not without consequence. I crouched down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.

It struck without warning, without respect to my circumstances. Nay, it wasn't a hexed disposal drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects she spied between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait under the sink. At precisely the second I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.

Now when men feel pain or even sense danger anywhere close to their masculine region, they lose all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements. Instinctively, their nerves compel the body to contort inwardly, while rising upwardly at a violent rate of speed. Not even a well trained monk could calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a step-by-step manner. Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "fight or flight" syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the "flight" option.

Fleeing straight up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels when it is alarmed. It was a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great heights to escape, I never made it that far. The sink and cabinet bluntly impeded my ascent; the impact knocked me out cold. When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to conduct their work while suppressing their hysterical laughter.

At the office, colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" If they had only known.

1. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.

2. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same clothes. Wear each outfit one day after your boss does. This is especially effective if your boss is of the opposite sex.

3. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point, Sparky." "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Cha-cha."

4. Send email to the rest of the company telling them exactly what you're doing. For example: "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom."

5. Hi-Lite your shoes. Tell people that you haven't lost them as much since you did this.

6. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in Palmolive liquid. Call everyone Madge.

7. Hang mosquito netting around your cubicle. When you emerge to get coffee or a printout or whatever, slap yourself randomly the whole way.

8. Place a chair facing a printer. Sit there all day and tell people you're waiting for your document.

9. Every time someone asks you to do something - anything - ask him if he wants fries with that.

10. Send email back and forth to yourself, engaging yourself in an intellectual debate. Forward the correspondence to a coworker and ask her to settle the disagreement.

11. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.

12. Put your trashcan on your desk. Label it "IN."

13. Feign an unnatural and hysterical fear of staplers.

14. Send email messages saying there's free pizza or donuts or cake in the lunchroom. When people drift back to work complaining that they found none, lean back, pat your stomach and say, "Oh, you've got to be faster than that."

15. Put decaf in the coffee maker for three weeks. Once everyone has withdrawn from caffeine addiction, switch to espresso.

The idea is to score the most points. Your attempts need to be verified by either a player or non-player.

ONE-POINT GAGS

Run one lap around the office at top speed.

Ignore the first five people who say "good morning" to you.

Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."

To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.

In the middle of a meeting, suddenly shout out "Yahtzee!"

Walk sideways to the photocopier.

While riding an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

THREE-POINT GAGS

Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barrelled fingers.

Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it."

Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).

Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a "non-player" within sight).

Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

FIVE POINT GAGS

At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).

Walk into a very busy person's office and while he watches you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.

For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".

Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do number two."

After every sentence, say "mon" in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in, "the report's on your desk, mon". Keep this up for one hour.

While an office mate is out, move her chair into the elevator.

In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!"

At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again."

In a colleagues diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in tights."

Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna trade?"

Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person:
"Do you hear that?"
"What?"
"Never mind, it's gone now"

While talking to a colleague, pick your nose and eat the booger.

Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it."

Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.

Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.

Tuck one pant leg into your sock and when queried, answer, "not now" and walk away.

"In My Day. . . ."

In my day, we didn't have mouses to move the cursor around. We only had the arrows, and if the up arrow was broken and you needed to get to the top of the screen, well, you just hit the left arrow a thousand times. (Kevin Cuddihy, Fairfax)

In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction. (Bill Flavin, Alexandria)

In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated. (Jon Patrick Smith, Washington)

In my day, we didn't have fancy high numbers. We had "nothing," "one," "twain" and "multitudes." (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off voice saying `Doors closing.' We got on the train, the doors closed, and if your hand was sticking out it scraped along the tunnel all the way to the next station and it was a bloody stump at the end. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him. (Sarah M. Wolford, Hanover)

Back in the 1970s we didn't have the space shuttle to get all excited about. We had to settle for men walking on the crummy moon. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

In my day, we didn't have days. There was only "time for work," "time for pray" and "time for sleep." The sheriff would go around and tell everyone when to change. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

In my day, people could only dream of hitchhiking a ride on a comet. (David Ronka, Charlottesville)

In my day, we didn't have fancy health-food restaurants. Every day we ate lots of easily recognizable animal parts, along with potatoes drenched in melted fat from those animals. And we're all as strong as AAGGKK-GAAK Urrgh. Thud. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

When I was your age, we didn't have fake doggie-do. We only had real doggie-do, and no one thought it was a bit funny. (Brendan Bassett, Columbia)

In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms. (Diana Hugue, Bowie)

Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day, the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched on the back of a giant tortoise. (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park)

In the old days, nobody asked you to sign petitions. The sheriff just came to your house and told you you was part of a posse. (Barry Blyveis, Columbia)

In my day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver Beauty, my beloved paper clip. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

Back in my day, "60 Minutes" wasn't just a bunch of gray-haired liberal 80-year-old guys. It was a bunch of gray-haired liberal 60-year-old guys. (Russell Beland, Springfield, and Jerry Pannullo, Kensington)

In my day, we didn't have Strom Thurmond. Oh, wait. Yes we did ... (Peg Sheeran, Vienna)

My tire was thumping.
I thought it was flat
When I looked at the tire...
I noticed your cat.
Sorry!

Heard your wife left you,
How upset you must be.
But don't fret about it...
She moved in with me.

Looking back over the years
that we've been together,
I can't help but wonder...
"What the hell was I thinking?"

Congratulations on your wedding day!
Too bad no one likes your husband.

How could two people as beautiful as you
Have such an ugly baby?

I've always wanted to have
someone to hold,
someone to love.
After having met you
I've changed my mind.

I must admit, you brought Religion into my life.
I never believed in Hell until I met you.

As the days go by, I think of how lucky I am...
That you're not here to ruin it for me.

Congratulations on your promotion.
Before you go...
Would you like to take this knife out of my back?
You'll probably need it again.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad!
(Available only in Tennessee, Kentucky & West Virginia )

Happy birthday! You look great for your age.
Almost Lifelike!

When we were together,
you always said you'd die for me.
Now that we've broken up,
I think it's time you kept your promise.

We have been friends for a very long time ..
let's say we stop?

I'm so miserable without you
it's almost like you're here.

Congratulations on your new bundle of joy.
Did you ever find out who the father was?

Your friends and I wanted to do
something special for your birthday.
So we're having you put to sleep.

So your daughter's a hooker,
and it spoiled your day.
Look at the bright side,
it's really good pay.