Pain In The Bud

Buddy’s New Fragrance, Litière, Available Anywhere Fine Products Are Sold

Buddy offers fragrances for the sophisticated feline.

PARIS – Buddy the Cat’s much-anticipated new line of fragrances, Litière Eau de Cologne and Litière Parfum Pour Elle, will hit stores just in time for the summer season.

The feline-inspired scents were created in collaboration with the Purrsace perfumery and promise a pheromonal feast fantastique for the olfactory senses.

Litière Eau de Cologne, Buddy’s signature scent for males, “combines a littery musk with the earthy, seductive aura of fresh turkey, cinnamon, triumphant notes of fiery wasabi and subtle hints of tuna. As decadent and lazy as felines themselves, Litière Eau de Cologne works best as a celebration of sedentary existence, of many hours nestled in the warm embrace of a favorite couch spot with the sun on your back. Meowgnificent!”

Its sister scent, Litière Pour Elle, is “infused with notes of blackberry jam and an oxytocinal essense that evokes kittens snoozing in a purratic pile after their morning milk This lush and leafy fragrance is designed to be carried by the soft breezes of spring and summer, gently wafting its way toward the olfactory organs of strapping toms and leaving no doubt that its wearer is in heat. With Litière Pour Elle, you’ll have your next litter of kittens in no time.”

Litiere Pour Elle: For when you want every tom within five miles to know you’re in heat.

Purrsace is betting big on the novel fragrances, backing a campaign featuring commercials in which a nude Buddy emerges from a hot tub, eases into a relaxed pose and extends his claws as a pair of models towels his luxuriant fur dry.

Another spot is slated to run during the Academy Awards, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 matches, as well as Wimbledon and the French Open.

That advert depicts Buddy with a beret and a baguette, enjoying coffee and croissants on the terrace of a Parisian cafe before female cats recognize him by his scent and run after him. After several frames depicting an intensifying pursuit, the camera pans out to a wider shot showing the streets of Paris overrun with yowling female cats looking for Buddy.

“It has been my life’s l’honor working with Messieur Buddeaux,” Purrsace chief perfumist Guillaume Stéphane Olivier Jean-Henri François Laurent Remontoire said. “Litière will be the aroma of choice for felines sophistiqué!”

parisiancafe2 — “Sacre bleu! Un jolie femmes can’t control themselves around me! It must be the Litiere pheromonique!”

Kitty Barges Into Dodgers-Rockies Game, Tries Out For Center Field

You can’t play baseball, kitteh! “Hold my bowl,” kitteh says.

A grey cat sprinted onto the field during Friday night’s Dodgers-Rockies matchup at Denver’s Coors Field, briefly taking over center field as thousands of fans cheered him on.

The furball may have thought the Dodgers needed help in the field after starter Trevor Bauer took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, then got smacked for a pair of homers and gave up six quick runs.

“He’s in center field,” one of the announcers said. “Sprinting into the gap, at the track, at the wall and…captured!”

https://mobile.twitter.com/Dodgers/status/1378199161175220225

Dodgers centerfielder Cody Bellinger cheered the little intruder on as he backed up to the wall like a true outfielder, trying to escape a pair of masked employees who scooped him up so play could resume.

Word after the game was that Mets GM Zack Scott offered a roster spot to the enthusiastic kitty, envisioning the fast feline as a pinch runner. If the unidentified cat signs, he’ll earn the league minimum 438,000 cans for his rookie season.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Rockies/status/1378196822242508802

Last night’s game was not the first time a cat has taken the field at a major US sporting event. On Nov. 4, 2019, a black cat scurried out while the New York Giants were hosting the Dallas Cowboys. Superstitious fans blamed the cat for the Giants’ subsequent losing streak, but the truth is the team was just terrible and kitty was simply reminding everyone of that fact.

I’m A Pirate! Argh!!

Little Buddy realizes he loves the pirate life!

Dear Landlubbers,

I ken many of ye were upset to hear I’ve been exiled, and truth be told I was none too pleased meself and dreamt of luring Big Buddy to Davy Jones’ locker and the watery grave he deserve, the disloyal scallywag!

But then I realized the pirate life is pretty awesome! Uh, belay that! Pirating be more fun than having a hundred red dots on me stern, ye savvy?

Them sons of biscuit eaters in the shipping lanes be carrying more plunder than ye know what to do with, and ain’t it delightful to steal from them scurvy dogs? Aye! I stash me booty in me litter box where no one will think to look for it.

That’s all the pirate words I know for now, hearties. See ya in port!

Buddy aka Greybeard

Pirate Buddy — Ahoy! Greybeard, scourge o’ the seven seas!

Bye, Buddy: Why I Got Rid Of My Cat

Buddy has been shipped to Somalia for a new life with new owners. What a relief!

When I started Pain In The Bud, my goal wasn’t to celebrate cats or to express my love for my cat by sharing his quirks and amusing anecdotes about his allegedly adorable behavior.

I had one goal and one goal only: To make money. That’s why you see ads all over this site, and it’s why I’ve been relentlessly hawking certain pet products. The companies behind those products pay me big bucks!

Which brings us to our next bit of news. Since I’ve been writing about Buddy online, creating a fictionalized version of him that is delightful and loveable, and selecting only the best photos to make him look handsome and dashing, I’ve received several offers to buy him.

To be clear, the reason I didn’t sell him before was not because I was hesitant to part with him. He’s annoying AF, he’s a degenerate catnip addict and he never, ever shuts up.

The real reason? I was holding out for more money. The more I wrote about him, the more delightful and adorable he’d appear to readers, driving his price up. It’s kind of like a basketball team giving more playing time to a player on the trading block, pumping up his stats so he’ll command a higher price on the open market.

The Buddinese Tiger — A promotional image that was part of my dastardly campaign to drive up Buddy’s price in the recent bidding war. He is not a tiger.

So when the most recent offer came in last week, I felt I’d driven Buddy’s price up as high as it would go. A potential buyer in Somalia offered $20,000 for the little stinker! In the meantime, another interested party — a competitive table-setting champion from Skokie, Illinois — offered $22,000.

It was time for a bidding war!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to report that Buddy has been sold to the Somali for $28,550. The lucky (or unlucky, really) bidder, a pirate who plunders the commercial shipping lanes off the coast of his native country, believed all the nonsense about Buddy being a fierce and powerful miniature tiger, and was in the market for a guard cat to help keep his booty safe.

They tell me there is no turkey where Buddy has gone, and he was very angry about that. Oh well. His new owner is also a neatness freak with OCD who vacuums his home six times a day, which I imagine does not sit well with Buddy, given his history with vacuum cleaners.

But who cares? I got almost 30 grand out of the deal! I’m going to buy a new Les Paul to replace the one “Buddy” (real name Jerkus Maximus) broke, my home is blissfully quiet, and I can sleep through the night without being woken by that infernal little tribble with a tail licking my face. Who in their right mind wants to be roused in the middle of the night by a purring cat? It’s absurd.

So it is with a not-so-heavy heart that I announce an end to Pain In The Bud. He really was a huge pain in the bud. Now he’s someone else’s pain in the bud. Huzzah!

P.S. With Buddy gone, I plan to refocus this blog on the wonderful world of Hummels and the extremely profitable Hummel resale market. Wanna buy the hottest Hummels at street prices? Hit me up.

Sad Buddy — Awww, so sad! Buddy has been exiled to Somalia!

Reason #53 To Keep Your Cats Indoors: Vigilantes

A cat killer warns people in one neighborhood to get their cats off the streets.

One bad thing about having Google News alerts for cat-related stories is the sheer, sickening volume of articles about cats who are maimed, tortured, killed by vigilante lunatics, dispatched by overzealous birders, shot with BB guns or arrows, poisoned with antifreeze, murdered as proxies in domestic violence incidents, kicked like soccer balls by juvenile psychopaths, or tragically killed by someone’s epic stupidity.

The amount of violence directed at felines is mind-boggling, and it doesn’t reflect well on the US: For example in Istanbul, a city of more than 15 million people, there are some 130,000 cats living on the streets, not including pets. While many ‘Mericans see an animal and think “Let’s shoot it!” the people of Turkey are overwhelmingly compassionate, going to incredible lengths to make sure street cats are fed, watered, sheltered and have access to veterinary care.

Today’s story fits in the “vigilante lunatics” category.

It’s not clear if the person in question simply hates cats or is acting out of some misguided campaign to “protect” small wildlife, but we do know that a would-be cat killer is threatening to kill outdoor kitties in Joplin, Missouri, a city about 230 miles east of Oklahoma City.

photo of british shorthair cat sitting on grass field — Credit: Kirsten Bu00fchne/Pexels

The suspect slapped warning letters and posters on the front doors of homes along four separate streets between 2:40 and 5 a.m. on Monday, local police said.

Cops haven’t released the full text of the letters, but said the letter-writer threatened to kill any stray or feral cats he or she comes across in the neighborhood. Likewise, while police did say images of the letter-writer were captured on doorbell cameras, they’re holding the identifying details close to the vest right now, which they may do for any number of reasons.

One of the homeowner who received the letter said he fears his two missing cats are now dead. Another neighbor said the letters follow similar threats by a woman wearing a red jacket, who told some people in the neighborhood to keep their cats inside or else.

“The lady, she was walking up and down the streets going door to door telling everybody that they better watch out for our cats because they were going to start being euthanized,” the neighbor told WKSN, the local NBC affiliate.

Joplin police are offering $2,500 to anyone with information that leads to the arrest of the letter-writer.