Catological Humor

Dogs and cats. Two glorious examples of how much people want to share their love, and some people still turn it into a pitched battle. That’s the entire hope and tragedy of our species right there. Some of the more rabid of the dog brigade boast that they don’t need to keep shit-boxes in their homes. But when a dog owner brags about not having to clean up after their pet, you know you’re not the asshole in this situation.

Because the asshole in any pet situation is still a cat. Even if they’re not involved. They’re that good at it. And Neutrino is unveiling the full power of his biology in a quest for domination.

What happens when Blofeld and his cat have a telepod accident

What happens when Blofeld and his cat have a telepod accident

Or rather he’s ceasing to veil it, leaving his litter tray deposits uncovered as a feline power play. Proof that this is his land, his home, and that he fears no other animal in the area. He stinks the place up and I must obediently scoop it away. But I don’t buy that idea of inferiority. Because you know, if someone came into my bathroom every day to steal my poop, and there was nothing I could do to stop it? I wouldn’t feel like I was winning that interaction. Every time I do my doody-duty he stares like I’m too crazy to understand or confront.

Then there’s the pee. When Striker pees outside the litter box it’s impossible to punish him, because he looks as confused by what’s happening as anyone else. He gives the impression that the few neurons he has to play with are just holding on to the front of this “cat” thing as it’s driven around by a self-cranking tail. Not like Neutrion, who knows exactly what pee is and how to use it. He never goes outside the box by accident. It’s only ever when we’ve returned from holiday. To show his displeasure he’ll leap onto an unpacking suitcase and piss right through all our clothes, maintaining eye contact all the way. He’ll stay arching and staring even as you dive at him, taking the hit just to teach us a lesson.

But their smelly stuff does describe another interesting animal hierarchy. Our local cattery recommended Small Holder Range chicken pellets as cat litter. Big bulky bags of odor-absorbent, easily-scooped litter box material for a fraction of the cost of stuff which actually says that on the bag. So the chicken’s best food is the cat’s best toilet roll. You can’t make your position above something else more clear without peeing on them directly.


More internet-approved cat-content with

Sci-fi Cat-fi

Cats are the perfect models for dystopian sci-fi*. A race of beautiful bastards motivated by greed and manipulation, naturally inquisitive, acquisitive, and territorial. They’re already all our human problems in a wrapper people want to spend time with. Which makes them the perfect analog for working out science-fiction stories: give them an equivalent item to your story’s MacGuffin and watch what happens.

*The only problem is that we can’t combine the names, because I’m sure scat-fi is something that already exists, and am even surer that it’s not something I want to read.

Example: we’ve just set up our automatic cat feeder, and the cats have already started worshipping it. Once they realized they couldn’t beat it into submission (as with earlier and inferior cat feeders, which had clearly been designed by someone who thought cats were patient) they started sitting in supplication. Staring. Waiting. I’ve never seen them so close to religious. Once they work out the feeding times they’ll move on to the next stage: rebuilding their feline society around the infeline whims of an all-providing, suddenly all-powerful machine.

It’s appalling how quickly humanity became superfluous. We’re not the feeders any more, so we’re not as important. And we might know that in the long run we’re still necessary — the machine will need to be refilled, the machine will need new batteries, the machine might break — but then, when have we ever chosen long term survival over short term convenience? This experiment was meant to model a possible future and it’s already extrapolated the present.

I sat on the bed, obsolete before the Altar of Automatic Food, when one of its fuzzy supplicants scooched over to lean against me. Never taking his eyes off his whirring god, of course, but nevertheless moving to be warm, and comfy, and wait for the machine to take care of everything else.

And I thought, “I wonder if I can get a feeder.”


More feline fun with The Shrinking Cat Box Experiment

Striker Strikes. Which May In Retrospect Have Been Predictable

Neutrino is already known to our vets as “M4”, “THAT cat”, and various other capitalized keywords meaning “Get the reinforced gloves and don’t bother being nice”. He’s a more urgent reason to wear protection for rough physical contact thanan S&M brothel. Luckily today I was bringing friendly little Striker instead.

And he exploded.

 

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The Shrinking Cat Box Experiment

Humans buy lots of things to make them feel safe and distract them from the vast uncertainties of existence, which works out for cats, because they only need the box.

Unless you just bought a complete virtual reality system and a copy of “Heaven 2.0: God decided oral sex was allowed”, you’re not as happy as Neutrino right now

Unless you just bought a complete virtual reality system and a copy of “Heaven 2.0: God made it better”, you’re not as happy as Neutrino right now

Of course, this gave me an idea

"Why are you laughing? Why do I have a bad feeling?"

“Why are you laughing? Why do I have a bad feeling?”

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