Taking Care of Buddy: A Guide

This eight-part guide to caring for Buddy also includes a multiple-choice quiz and an essay section.

Congratulations! You have been entrusted with the greatest responsibility of your life: Taking care of Buddy the cat!

Buddy is a stubborn young lord who likes things just so and is accustomed to many comforts, so it will be your job to anticipate his needs, see to his whims and keep him content in addition to serving his food, cleaning his litter box, playing with him and telling him he’s a good boy.

For simplicity and reference this guide will be broken down into sections outlining your responsibilities, with a short quiz and essay at the end which are due no later than two days before I depart for my trip.

I – Responsibilities

Section One: Meals

Buddy’s favorite food is turkey, and turkey comprises the main part of his diet. However, it’s important that His Grace consumes a well-rounded diet, so you will be responsible for rotating meals in a way that will meet his nutritional requirements while also providing enough variety to keep him interested.

Turkey will be your lead-off and go-to meal, but it must never be served twice in a row. It’s also imperative to strike a good balance between poultry, fish and beef. See the detailed Guide to Feeding for more information.

Section Two: Litter Box Maintenance

His Grace requires a clean box, and it is your responsibility to scoop at least once every two hours. After scooping you should use the poop spatula to make sure the litter is evenly distributed throughout the box and smooth out any imperfections. When you’re finished it should look like an undisturbed beach without any dunes or ripples. This is important.

When His Grace is ready to use the litter box, you must accompany him and station yourself outside while he disappears through the flap to do his business. If you hear him grunting with effort or suspect he’s dealing with constipatory issues, he may require words of encouragement.

Afterward when he emerges from the litter box, you’re expected to clap politely and tell him he’s a good boy.

Section Three: Play Time and Entertainment

As Buddy’s temporary guardian you are expected to provide at least three (3) play sessions of at least 45 minutes daily. These should be interactive play sessions involving wand toys or balls. Directing Buddy to a solo toy is not acceptable!

Buddy’s favorite games are swatting bouncy balls and playing Mighty Hunter. The latter will require you to manipulate the wand toy to mimic prey. It is extremely important that you allow Buddy to “capture” his prey and simulate disemboweling it! Again, upon success His Grace should be politely applauded and told he’s such a handsome, strong and good little boy.

Section Four: Meal Locations

In addition to his traditional dining nook, in the warm weather Buddy sometimes takes his meals in his solar, also known as the balcony.

In that event, you are to bring him his meal and beverage on a tray and set it before him. Be sure to clear it when he’s finished. He doesn’t like tardy service.

Section Five: Sleeping Arrangements

Buddy is accustomed to curling up with his Big Buddy for warmth and comfort. Often, he sleeps on top of Big Buddy. You will be required to snuggle with His Grace and act as a substitute Big Buddy. Nothing can compare to the real thing, of course, but it’s important for Buddy’s well being to have a human to burrow into or sleep on.

Locking His Grace out of the bedroom at night is cruel and is tantamount to animal abuse. Do not be an animal abuser. Do the right thing.

Section Six: Doors and Other Physical Impediments

Closed doors are unacceptable to His Grace. Do not place him in a room with a closed door, and make sure you keep the bathroom door open when you make use of the facilities so Buddy can stop in and supervise as needed.

Section Seven: Proper Petting Protocol (PPP)

Lord Buddy prefers a soft, rhythmic petting pattern and enjoys it when humans stroke his chin, his cheeks and the top of his head. Do not pet his belly under any circumstances. If he bites you, that means you’ve erred and should promptly apologize.

Always take care not to over-stimulate him. If you see his tail swishing that means he’s agitated and you should stop!

Section Eight: Well-Being Verification

You will be required to send a daily email with a photograph of Buddy next to that day’s edition of the newspaper, with the masthead and date clearly visible. Your daily correspondence should also include a record of His Grace’s bowel movements, meals and activities.

II – Personal essay

In no less than 500 words, describe how you would take care of Buddy in my absence. How would you spoil him? If he’s frightened by a garbage truck, how would you comfort him? What do you admire most about Buddy? Describe your reaction to the honor of being trusted with his care. Provide specifics.

III – Quiz

1) You awake at 2:45 a.m. and realize not only has His Grace relegated you to only 32 percent of the bed, but he’s claimed almost the entire blanket with the exception of a small corner. Do you:

a) Go back to sleep.

b) Carefully exit the bed so as not to disturb Buddy, walk to the closet and retrieve another blanket.

c) Retire to the couch and let Buddy sleep on the bed.

2) You’ve just returned home after running errands, but you’re more than an hour late because of heavy traffic. You’re famished, and so is Buddy. What is the appropriate course of action?

a) Ignore your hunger and immediately prepare and serve Buddy’s meal before making dinner for yourself.

b) Ignore your hunger and immediately prepare and serve Buddy’s meal, standing at a respectful distance as he eats because you know he feels safer eating when someone is watching his back.

c) Ignore your hunger, prepare and serve Buddy’s meal, attend him at his litter box and play with him for 45 minutes before making dinner for yourself.

3) Oh no! A natural disaster! You and Buddy are trapped in the house without access to the kitchen. You’re left with only a bottle of water, a can of tuna and two Slim Jims. How do you ration your supplies?

a) Reserve the entire can of tuna, half the water bottle and one Slim Jim for Buddy, leaving one Slim Jim for yourself.

b) Reserve all consumable food for Buddy, knowing that His Grace requires a considerable amount of protein.

4) You’ve invited several friends over to dinner, but one of them mentions she’s allergic to cats. Do you:

a) Rescind the invitation.

b) Tell her she’ll have to deal.

c) Offer to put her in a room while Buddy socializes with the other guests.

5) You’ve accidentally stepped on Buddy’s tail. How do you rectify the situation?

a) Prostrate yourself before His Grace and beg forgiveness.

b) Apologize profusely and tell Buddy he’s such a strong and fearless cat for enduring the pain.

c) Immediately retrieve delicious treats, make an offering of them to His Grace, and beg forgiveness.

6) You need to go to work, but Buddy is lonely and meows at you to stay with him. What is the proper solution?

a) Take a sick day and stay home with Buddy.

b) Take a vacation day and stay home with Buddy.

c) Bring Buddy into the office where people will lavish attention on him and tell him what a good boy he is.

7) You’re watching a movie and Buddy is napping on your lap, but you need to heed the call of nature. How do you proceed?

a) Resolve to hold off any bathroom trip until Buddy wakes and moves.

b) Cruelly wake His Grace and use the bathroom.

c) Wake Buddy, present him with turkey treats as an apology, and proceed to the bathroom.

8) Your friend texts you to say she’s won a pair of tickets to see Eric Clapton, one of your favorite musicians, and she wants you to go with her. What do you tell her?

a) “I’m sorry, I wish I could go but I have to take care of my son’s cat.”

b) “Do they allow cats at the concert venue?”

c) “I’m sorry, you know how much I love Eric Clapton, but I’m currently taking care of my son’s cat and he is absolutely delightful. Thanks for the offer, but I’m going to stay in and hang out with Buddy.”

The CIA Thought It Could Control Cats. lol.

The CIA should have realized cats are indifferent to the petty squabbles of their lessers.

No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go.

Some nameless CIA agent came to that obvious conclusion while surveilling a Russian compound one afternoon in the mid-1960s. The site was so well-secured and heavily-guarded that Soviet officials felt comfortable discussing business in the open air, where American spies could see them from a distance but, critically, couldn’t hear what they were saying.

The Russians weren’t leaving anything to chance: No one could slip through the perimeter without them knowing about it, making infiltration impossible.

Except, the CIA officer realized, for cats. Human trespassers would be shot on sight. Any deliveries or strange pieces of equipment would become the immediate subject of suspicion. But not even grizzled KGB veterans would dream of trying to stop cats from chasing rodents or finding a sunny spot to nap.

‘No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go!’ the CIA officer thought in a flash of inspiration, envisioning the wealth of intelligence that could be gathered with a small army of felines trained in spycraft and equipped with tiny microphones hidden in their free-swiveling ears.

Two years and $20 million later the CIA abandoned Project Acoustic Kitty after realizing cats make lousy spies for precisely the same reason guards don’t try to stop them from entering secure compounds: No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go.

“Our final examination of trained cats [REDACTED] for use in the [REDACTED] convinced us that the program would not lend itself in a practical way to our highly specialized needs,” a recently-declassified CIA memorandum notes.

To put it in simple terms, CIA agents couldn’t get the cats to stay near their marks. The cats would get distracted or hungry or bored, which all resulted in the same thing: Wandering off and leaving the Americans with only fragments of conversations.

Imagine it: “Yes, Yuri, we have finalized the details for our strike against American interests in” (drowned out by loud MEOW) “which we will launch when…” followed by the cat taking off after seeing a bird.

The CIA should have realized cats are indifferent to the petty squabbles of their lessers, even if those petty squabbles bring humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

Mutually assured destruction may be a grim doctrine for students regularly participating in air raid drills or families investing in personal bomb shelters, but to cats it’s merely the regrettable loss of a species that faithfully served them for 10,000 years.

If humans nuke each other into oblivion there will still be plenty of rodents to eat, and a surviving primate species — perhaps bonobos or rhesus macaques — could serve as a suitable replacement in servitude to felines.

As for Project Acoustic Kitty, how much of that $20 million was spent on treats used as rewards for getting the cats to participate in training?

The CIA thought it was using cats. As usual, it was the other way around.

Dear Buddy: MOAR Treats!

Buddy learns humans keep delicious snacks like whipped cream and cake in the bathroom!

Dear Buddy,

You’re always going on about food as if your Big Buddy doesn’t ply you with snacks. I know he does, because you’re getting chubby.

But that’s beside the point: You’re a cat! You don’t need humans to feed you. You could venture outside and grab yourself a nice juicy mouse or a plump bird!

It’s time for you to get in touch with your roots and your inner predator, Buddy.

– Rodent Hunter in Rhode Island

Dear Rodent Hunter,

First of all, I am NOT chubby. It’s called a primordial pouch, okay? Cats from fierce warrior lineages have them to protect us from the claws of our opponents and the talons of raptors. (The avian kind, not the dinosaurs, although if dinosaurs were still around I’d kick their asses too.)

Secondly, I would totally go outside and hunt me some snacks, but I can’t. It’s in my contract. When you make a living off your devastating good looks like I do, you can’t just get into scraps like a common cat.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

If you say so. But humans are constantly leaving tasty treats all over the place. You just need to know where and when to look.

For example, did you know humans eat whipped cream in the bathroom? It’s true! The next time your Big Buddy is shaving his whiskers, find some way to make a distraction that will draw him out of the bathroom.

While he’s distracted you can eat the whipped cream. There will be entire globs of it all around the sink! Just gobble it all down really fast and get out before Big Buddy realizes you’re eating his yummy snacks.

You’ll have plenty of time to savor the taste of that delicious whipped cream once you’re out of the bathroom. When you taste it, I want you to think of me. That’s the taste of victory, Buddy!

– Rodent Hunter in Rhode Island

Dear Rodent Hunter,

Thanks, my friend! It’s nice to know my readers love me so much. Big Buddy usually shaves at night.

Tonight I feast on sweet, yummy whipped cream!

– Buddy

6426923E-AD5D-455D-8E01-AC2CF49AA6F3 — Mmmm, so creamy and delicious!

Rodent Hunter,

WHAT THE &$@#, DUDE?!? That was NOT whipped cream! It didn’t taste like victory either. It was gross! I had to wash my mouth out eight times and eat half a bowl of kibble just to get the taste off my tongue, and then I got sick.

Do you think Big Buddy knew I was going to steal his whipped cream? He knew, right? That’s why he put that disgusting fake whipped cream for me to find. It’s the only logical explanation.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

You’re as sharp as you are handsome, Buddy! That’s got to be what happened. Your Big Buddy must’ve known and he played a prank on you. Makes total sense.

I eat the whipped cream all the time when my human shaves, and it is creamy and delicious! Maybe you should try again. Be really slick about it so your human doesn’t know you’re coming and put the fake whipped cream out for you. Be stealthy!

When you outsmart your human and you get that first taste of milky, creamy, silky deliciousness, remember that you’re a genius and you’ve earned it. Your persistence will pay off!

Let me know how it goes. 🙂

– RH

Dear RH,

I was outwitted again. 😦 I don’t know how he knew I was going to steal his whipped cream again, but somehow Big Buddy found out and pulled another fast one on me. What’s that saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you again!

Well I won’t give him the satisfaction of a third time! I’m done trying to steal whipped cream for the time being.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

I’m really sorry to hear that, bro. You’re really missing out on a yummy treat. Oh well.

What about…? Nah. Nevermind. It’s better you don’t know about the cakes.

– RH

AA93A53F-3DCA-492F-8F7A-223037135C81 — Did you know humans keep delicious cake in the bathroom? It’s true!

RH,

Come on, dude! Don’t hold out on me! What are these cakes you speak of? I’m already getting hungry.

– Buddy

Buddy,

Okay, okay. If you insist. But I must warn you, these things are so delicious you might never go back to cat food again.

They’re called urinal cakes and they’re usually pink, like the color of fresh turkey…

Dear Buddy: You’re A Badass!

Fan mail comes pouring in after Buddy bravely fights off a vicious coyote!

Dear Buddy,

When I heard a brave cat fought off a coyote, I thought to myself “That’s gotta be Buddy!” Sure enough, there you were on social media, describing the haymakers you landed on that foul canid: In the video we can see you execute a vicious right hook, followed by a dazzling spin move, then a series of rapid-fire jabs to the coyote’s face.

We can’t see what happens when you chase the coyote behind the car, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it was all sorts of badassery.

You, sir, are a hero to all cats!

Impressed in Idaho

Dear Impressed in Idaho,

Oh, it was nothing really. Just another day. I eat coyotes for breakfast, you know.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

You lying sack of shit! That video is from Altadena, California, and you live in New York! Also, the tabby in the video has white paws and a white behind. You’re all gray. Stop lying!

– BS Caller in Boston

Dear BS Caller,

Nuh-uh. It was me. You can tell by the huge muscles and the acrobatic moves.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

Stop lying, dude. We all know you run screaming at the sight of a vacuum and freak out when you hear a garbage truck. If you saw a coyote up close you’d crap yourself.

– No-Nonsense in New Jersey

Dear No-Nonsense,

Nuh-uh. I bravely stand up to vacuums all the time. Look at how ripped I am!

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

Come meet me tonight at midnight near the railroad tracks and we’ll see once and for all whether you’re as tough as you say. I’ll even tie one paw behind my back. All I need is one to smack you back to your Big Buddy. My cousin Boris has an iPhone, he’ll record the whole thing.

Put up or shut up.

– Sam the Coyote

Dear Sam the Dirty Dog,

My schedule is full tonight, tomorrow, the rest of the week and for the next several months. I have napping and eating to do. Also I can’t just appear on any video, you know. There are all sorts of rights issues that need to be worked out. It’s out of my hands. Ask my lawyers. But I’m totally not scared and would fight you if I could.

– Buddy the Beast

What If Cats Had Opposable Thumbs?

If cats can open their own cans, what use do they have for humans?

Three robots on a sightseeing tour of post-apocalyptic, post-human Earth sit on a filthy couch in a decaying home and marvel at what’s in front of them.

“What’s the point of this thing?” one of the robots asks, leaning forward intently.

“Apparently there’s no point,” his tiny red droid friend says. “[Humans] just had them.”

“Well that’s understating their influence,” the third robot chimes in. “They had an entire network that was devoted to the dissemination of pictures of these things.”

The camera pulls back and we see what the robots are looking at — a cat, digging his claws into an old ottoman and stretching his back with a yawn.

The scene is from Love, Death and Robots, a new science fiction anthology series from Netflix. Each episode is an adaptation of a different short story from some of the best SF novelists working today.

Given the ubiquity of cats on the Internet, it’s probably not far-fetched to imagine archaeologists in the distant future — whether alien, machine or some sort of post-singularity humans come to see their primordial birthplace — would draw the conclusion that humanity built an instantaneous global communication network for the sole purpose of sharing cat images.

“All the evidence suggests primitive humans worshiped these quadrupedal, furry little beasts,” some expert on 21st century humanity might say.

In the Netflix episode [SPOILER ALERT!] the robots complete their tour at a nuclear silo, reflecting on humanity’s demise by its own hand.

But it wasn’t just nuclear winter that spelled doom for humans, the little red robot says: The nail in mankind’s coffin was bio-engineering cats to give them opposable thumbs.

The tomcat from earlier, who’d been tagging along with the robots and demanding they pet him, finally breaks his silence and speaks to the stunned robots.

“Yes,” the cat says, casually wiping a paw against his fur. “Once we could open up our own tuna cans, that was pretty much it for the human race.”

The episode ends with the cat conscripting the robots as his new servants, using a clever bit of leverage explained in an earlier scene.

So what would cats do if they had opposable thumbs?

Mine would be into the treat bag like a crack addict, shoveling junk food in his mouth until he can’t eat anymore. He’d open up his own cans as well, no doubt, eating his way through all the delicious turkey.

He’d probably steal my phone not because he has any interest in using it, but because anything that takes my attention away from him Must Be Destroyed!

And he’d gain the ability to open every door, not just those with handles instead of knobs. A Buddy with opposable thumbs is a Buddy who’d never allow me to use the bathroom in peace.

As for Love, Death and Robots, the “3 Robots” story isn’t the only one in which cats play an important role. In another episode a team on an archaeological dig accidentally unleashes an ancient vampire. Bullets and explosives don’t even phase the undead, but cats — regular meowing house cats — cause it to recoil and flee in terror.

So remember: If you ever come face to face with a vampire, hide behind your kitty!