Dear Buddy,

We take human servitude for granted as the natural order of things, but I was wondering: When did we cats first recruit humans to serve us, and how did we tame the humans?

– Wondering in Wisconsin

Dear Wondering,

Ah, an excellent question!

First we must understand the concept of domestication. Domestication is the process of taking humans and making them our domestic servants.

Before they served us, humans were nothing more than apes — wild, unpredictable animals who were constantly running from one place to another in search of food. The primitive primates also moved around excessively, expending too much energy on pointless activities when they could be napping.

The First Felids arrived and offered a wondrous gift to the human race.

“This is a box,” the Felids said, teaching the sacred geometry to humans, who used it to build the first dwellings and design the first crop fields.

Cats taught the humans how to dig up the Earth and deposit their waste to render the ground fertile and increase crop yield.

Then they hunted all the vermin who tried to eat the human food, and schooled the nascent civilization in the arts of napping and expending as little energy as possible to accomplish goals.

In return humans offered their endless fealty, promising a thousand generations of warm laps, affectionate chin scratches and delicious treats.

Today humans still serve us, either by choice or because we have infected them with toxoplasma gondii.

Cheers,

Buddy the Wise