cat stories – Page 57 – Pain In The Bud

Buddy’s Mailbag: The Woman Who Identifies As A Cat

This is cultural appropriation!

Dear Buddy,

What do you think of this story about a 31-year-old woman who “identifies as a cat” and calls her boyfriend her “meowster”?

– A Real Cat

Woman Who Thinks She’s A Cat — *shudder* (Sauce: Barcroft TV)

Dear ARC,

Ugh! I cannot unsee this, do you realize that?

First of all, she’s doing it wrong:

Woman Who Wants To Be A Cat — WRONG! Erroneous! Totally wrong! (Barcroft TV)

What’s wrong with the above picture? Anyone who knows anything about my species will recognize immediately that the collar is on the wrong person. The “cat” should be leading the human around, although a collar isn’t strictly necessary for humans — usually a few stern meows are enough to get the message across.

Kat Lyons (come on!) fastens a tail to her behind, wears a pair of kitty ears on her head, and for some reason completes the look with a Catholic school girl skirt, because apparently my species dresses like Catholic school girls. (Plaid tabbies, anyone?)

In the accompanying video, Ms. Lyons climbs up onto a dinner table and awkwardly laps at a bowl of milk with her tongue.

”People are like ‘Oh, you’re not really a cat,’ and I’m like ‘I feel like I really am, though,’” Lyons told a documentary crew from Barcroft.

So what do I really think about all of this? I say, “Stop appropriating my culture!”

Licking your own butt, pooping in a box and sleeping 16 hours a day are traditions that have a long history among my people, and outsiders simply cannot understand the subtle cultural nuances of such behavior.

For example, screaming bloody murder when dinner is 45 seconds late is a tradition that has deep roots going back millennia to the days of the First Kittehs, and shitting on things is the time-honored way of registering displeasure.

It’s one thing to say “Stop! I don’t like what you’re doing!” and quite another to build a monument of fecal matter on your human’s pillow as a means of expressing deep dissatisfaction.

Cultural Appropriator! — A cultural appropriator appropriating my species’ well-known affinity for boxes. An outrage!

But if Ms. Lyons really wants to be a cat, she must pass the Trial of the Tabbies, and prove herself by catching and eating a delicious raw mouse.
She must possess the ability to groom herself, and she must demonstrate she can’t open cans anymore.

That’s a human superpower, and if Kat Lyons wants to be a real cat, she must forfeit her ability to perform such sorcery and meow for dinner like the rest of us.

Your friend,

Buddy

Cat Caught Smuggling Drugs Into Russian Penal Colony

Russian inmates have been using cats as couriers for drugs like hash and heroin.

Apparently some criminals in Russia avoid jail sentences and are sent instead to penal colonies, which are closed compounds resembling Laconian communes instead of prison blocks.

And apparently using cats to smuggle drugs into penal colonies is a favorite pastime among the Russkies — every few months a new story hits the headlines, detailing doomed drug delivery operations using kitties as couriers.

The latest comes to us courtesy of Tatarstan, where an inmate’s non-incarcerated confederates withheld food from a cat for a few days, then slipped hash in a hidden sleeve in kitty’s collar before setting him loose near the penal colony.

The hungry cat headed toward the compound where an inmate was presumably waiting with pungent chow to lure his unsuspecting mule. But guards realized there was something odd about the cat, and after a short chase around the grounds they were able to corner the purrpetrator, according to the BBC.

Here’s the sneaky tortoiseshell immediately after penal colony guards intercepted him in late October. He doesn’t look happy that he’s been caught and he’s missed some meals:

Russian cat gets caught carrying drugs — Can we get some Friskies for this guy already?

Meanwhile in the city of Novomoskovsk a case against a local inmate is on the brink of collapse after the cat who allegedly delivered drugs to him managed to escape from custody.

The slippery kitty was allegedly an accomplished mule when authorities nabbed him and found heroin in his collar. Three witnesses told prosecutors the tabby was a reliable enough courier that his owner, Eduard Dolgintsev, took regular drug orders for other inmates, per Russian media reports.

Wanted: Russian drug mule — WANTED: Dmitry the Deliverator, on charges of delivering smack to Russian inmates and talking smack to Russian prosecutors

The defense isn’t buying it.

Dolgintsev’s attorney told Russian newspapers he wanted to run experiments to see if the cat really would make reliable runs to and from the penal colony, hoping to demonstrate to the court that the idea was more fanciful than feasible.

The cat, who was considered evidence in the case, was kept in a “secure location” in a petting zoo facility, but when Dolgintsev’s attorney went there to check on the feline he was told it had slipped custody earlier, when staff let it out of the enclosure to get exercise and two dogs began creating commotion.

With the kitty’s dramatic escape, the case against the inmate looks shaky. A Russian legal expert told Kommersant.ru that the case would be dismissed unless “proof was previously obtained that the cat really did serve as an instrument in the crime.” Proof like lab test results showing traces of heroin on the his fur, for instance.

In the meantime, a very interested Buddy is wondering if the same method could be used to smuggle catnip and silvervine into The Big House, aka Animal Control…

Drug smuggling cat — This photo shows the Houdini of Novomoskovsk before he hightailed it out of his holding pen.

Man’s Elaborate Plan To Smuggle Fat Cat On Flight Backfires

A Russian man makes a painful sacrifice for his chonktastic cat, Viktor.

Mikhail Galin loves his cat Viktor, that’s for sure.

The 34-year-old Russian and his feline flew from Riga, the capital of Latvia, to Moscow without any incident on Nov. 6, but when Galin checked in for an 8.5-hour flight to his destination in Vladivostok, he was told Viktor was too fat to fly in the cabin.

Officials from Aeroflot — Russian Airlines — told Galin there was an 18-pound limit for companion animals checked into the cabin, and at 22 pounds, the chonktacular Viktor was just too much chonk to hang with his human in business class. Instead, Viktor would have to tough out the long flight in cargo.

But Viktor was already stressed from traveling, and Galin wouldn’t take the flight without the cat by his side.

“I was very worried that during the duration of an eight-hour flight, something would happen to him in the cargo and he wouldn’t survive the trip,” Galin told the Washington Post.

When he couldn’t persuade Aeroflot to let him board with Viktor, Galin turned to social media for help and found a couple sympathetic to his cause. Their cat, Phoebe, looked like a miniature Viktor.

Galin booked a business class ticket, met up with the couple at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and presented Phoebe as the cat he was taking with him on the flight. After airline employees weighed Phoebe and waved Galin forward, he and his new friends switched Viktor back in for his smaller body double and parted ways.

The plan worked beautifully and Galin would have gotten away with it if he hadn’t celebrated the successful swap on social media. He couldn’t resist the temptation and posted photos of Viktor on the flight: One shows the chubby cat peeking out of his carrier next to a glass of champagne, while another shot has Viktor in Galin’s lap, man helping cat enjoy a bird’s eye view.

Mikhail Galin and Viktor — Viktor takes a liking to business class.

The post went viral, an unamused Aeroflot got wind of it, and after an investigation the company docked Galin almost 400,000 frequent flier miles, his entire stash. It also booted him from its bonus miles program entirely.

“The law is harsh, but it is the law,” Galin told NBC News, repeating a stoic Russian maxim about punishment. “I violated the rules, and the carrier has every right to take action.”

Thankfully the result wasn’t all bad and Galin was rewarded for his loyalty to his cat. He told the Post several cat food companies had offered a year’s worth of food free for the flabby feline, and other transportation companies offered free use of their services.

While one politician called for Aeroflot to relax its rules on pet weight, the government wisely stayed out of kitty affairs.

“I don’t believe the Kremlin can or should comment on a situation involving a cat,” a spokesman for Vladimir Putin deadpanned.

As for Viktor, he’s made it clear he expects the same level of comfort next time he flies.

“He liked business class a lot better than economy class,” Galin said, “because he considered himself superior.”

Cat 1, Parents 0: Heroic Cat Rescues Toddler

A protective cat saves a toddler from a potentially nasty fall down a flight of stairs.

A cat in Colombia has been hailed a hero for saving a 1-year-old boy from a potentially nasty fall down a flight of stairs.

The incident happened on Halloween in Bogota. Samuel, the toddler, had escaped his play pen and had nearly made it to the stairs on all fours when Gatubela, a Siamese mix, leaped into action.

The cat dragged little Samuel back from the brink, then put herself between the toddler and the stairs, pushing him to safety:

“The cat has been part of our family practically since birth, we had her here when she was a month, a month and a few days old, and she has become familiar with my children,” Samuel’s father, Jesid Leon, told a reporter. “She is two months older than my son.”

As for the rest of it, I have no idea what’s going on here. Why does the floor look like a demilitarized zone? Where are the parents? And does Gatubela — whose name means Catwoman — get paid for babysitting? At the very least she deserves some treats…

Gatubela, Hero Cat — Jesid Leon, father of Samuel, cradles the heroic Gatubela.

A Black Cat Didn’t ‘Hex’ The Giants: They Just Stink

The cat is one of dozens living at the stadium, where they keep the rat population in check.

It’s been two days since a black cat briefly halted play by dashing onto the field during a nationally-televised football game between the Cowboys and the Giants, and now people are blaming the cat for the Giants’ loss.

Sportswriters are leading the charge, writing about hexes and omens and jinxes, and dusting off the cat puns as fans share memes about the kitty’s dark powers of suckage. It’s a “cat-tastrophe!” Har har!

We’re here to state the obvious: The New York Giants suck regardless of the black cat. They sucked before the cat appeared, they sucked during the game, and they’ll continue to suck for the seven remaining games of the season.

You could say they’ve elevated it to an art, registering losing records in six of the last seven seasons.

Giants Black Cat — Horrified by another losing season, the unnamed black cat tried to flee MetLife Stadium.

On Monday night the Giants took a drubbing, losing to the mediocre Dallas Cowboys 38-17 at home and lowering their season record to 2-7. The cat’s break for freedom was the most exciting play of the game.

In other words, the cat wasn’t the cause of the losing, he was a symptom — horrified by his team’s play, he took flight and was desperately trying to find a way out of the stadium. We’re sure of it!

In the meantime, stadium staff still haven’t found the freaked-out feline, and while an anonymous team employee says there are some 300 cats living in and around the stadium, a team spokesperson says that number is closer to 30, according to the New York Post.

Some of the cats live in the bowels of MetLife Stadium while others live on the grounds of the adjoining Meadowlands race track. They’re descended from cats brought in “decades ago” to tackle a rat problem at the track and in the tunnels connecting the facilities, according to the Bergen Record.

The stadium’s owners pay to keep the cats fed and spayed/neutered, per newspaper reports, while staff at the complex care for the animals. Good on them.

Now the Giants look ahead to Sunday’s match-up with the Jets in an event affectionately referred to as the Toilet Bowl. The two New York teams are a combined 3-14 this year, but fear not — as they go head-to-head, one of them is guaranteed to come away with a win!