here's one more



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:
>
> 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, orang-utans 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 they
> assume is more important than you. They 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 disembowelled
> 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.