NEW YORK — It took only six seconds for Jenna, Mikey’s new human, to open the bathroom door when guilted with mournful meows on Wednesday, the newly-homed cat reported.
The 28-year-old human woman entered the bathroom without her recently-adopted feline at approximately 6:22 pm on Wednesday.
“I said to myself, ‘Mikey, we gotta nip this in the bud right away. We can’t have her thinking she can use the bathroom without us, can we?'” the white moggie said.
Mikey launched into a routine that involved scratching the frame, reaching under the door and meowing frantically — “the classics,” he said.
Six seconds later the bathroom door opened, revealing a concerned Jenna.
“Oh my poor baby, are you okay?” she asked, extending a hand as Mikey padded into the bathroom. “I was worried! It sounded like someone was strangling you!”
Mikey said he milked his new human’s sympathy for all he could get.
“I flopped onto my back, gave out a little ‘Muurrrp!’ and looked at her with my big, sad eyes,” he told reporters. “A few minutes later she was in the kitchen, showering me with snacks. Easy peasy!”
Paws under the door: A classic feline manipulative strategy that almost always yields results, especially if you can grab something!
Mikey, who spent almost three months in a local shelter as younger cats were adopted during kitten season, said he’s proceeding cautiously in his new home and plans to use his keen feline powers of observation to develop a meticulous catalogue of which buttons to push at specific times “to yield maximum snackage and massages.”
“I haven’t used my solicitation purr yet,” he said. “So far my human’s been pliable and gives me what I want, when I want it. The other night she spent four hours laying in a very uncomfortable-looking position to avoid disturbing me while I napped on her shoulder. I want to see how far I can take it before bringing out the big guns.”
Patience has paid off, Mikey said.
“Her boyfriend came over the other night,” he said. “I could have hissed, peed in his shoes, chased him off. After all, there can only be one man of the house. But he brought a gift for me, one of those track towers with the ball you swat around, you know? I have to admit, I was impressed that he knew enough to pay tribute to me. That guy’s alright.”
MATO GROSSO DO SUL, Brazil — Fisherman and naturalists working in the Pantanal have reported a strange sight in recent weeks — a domestic cat tagging along with jaguars.
The gray tabby was observed lounging on the banks of the Amazon, napping in a tree and struggling to take bites out of a caiman killed by a generous jaguar, witnesses reported.
“HQ, we’ve got something extraordinary here,” a naturalist was heard reporting over local radio channels. “A jaguarundi is — no, scratch that — a house cat! A house cat is following a group of jaguars from the river bank into the deeper jungle.”
The feline in question was identified as Buddy the Cat of New York after his concerned human reached out to local authorities and appealed to the Brazilian press for his safe return.
“He does this all the time,” the New York man, identified as Big Buddy, told an interviewer from Folha De S. Paulo. “First he broke into the tiger exhibit at the Bronx Zoo and tried to get the tigers to accept him, only to be claimed as a cub by one of the tigresses. It took weeks to convince the zoo to get him out, and when I got him home I had to bathe him five times just to get the stink of tiger saliva off his fur.
“Then somehow he made his way to Tanzania, where he wandered around the Maasai Steppe for a few weeks trying to get into a lion pride. He failed miserably in that endeavor, too. Now with the jaguars. It never ends.”
Buddy the Cat, known as Kinich Bajo to his jaguar friends, pictured here in the Amazon.
The exasperated New York man claimed responsibility for his failure to keep his “ridiculous” cat from adventuring, but also blamed the transportation industry for accommodating Buddy.
“Who the hell allows an unaccompanied cat to take a bus or board an airplane?” he asked. “How did he end up in first class, sipping champagne and buzzing the stewardesses for more turkey every five minutes? I’m told he got quite drunk and threatened to become combative if he didn’t get an entire fried turkey.”
Asked why his cat was obsessed with ingratiating himself to larger cat species, Big Buddy answered without hesitation.
“He’s a dumbass,” the human said. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very cute, very loving little guy, and often a good boy, but a dumbass all the same.”
Buddy’s human said the 10-pound domestic cat often tears around the house, ambushing animate and inanimate objects and practicing his roar, “but he sounds like Elmo singing a funk song in falsetto.”
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
As of press time, Buddy the Cat still hadn’t returned home. Jaguars are known to be extraordinarily laid back compared to other big cats, and a loosely-affiliated group of the South American apex predators seemed to tolerate the domestic kitty.
“I can’t leave now,” Buddy told reporters. “They’ve begun to accept me! It would be a violation of trust if I just left them to eat all this delicious food by themselves.”
Kinich Ahau, the local jaguar elder, said his extended family had taken a liking to Buddy.
“Have you heard of this turkey? We did not know of it. It is wondrous!” the great jaguar said. “Buddy, or Kinich Bajo as he is known to us, has also shared great wisdom in the form of new and comfortable napping techniques. On the first night, we observed him construct a soft bed of leaves for himself in the crook of a branch, and over the following suns and moons we have come to appreciate softer napping spots.”
Buddy had sparked a renaissance in jaguarian napping technique, Kinich Ahau said.
“Nobody naps like Buddy,” he said. “No one!”
Brothers: Xibalbá, left, with Kinich Bajo and Ek B’alam.
With the fond support of the Amazon’s jaguars, Buddy was set to undergo an ancient shamanistic ritual involving the imbibing of Ayahuasca, a powerful psychoactive brew said to reveal cosmological secrets to those who drink it as part of a spiritual ceremony.
“We would not have invited Kinich Bajo, or Buddy as you call him, to commune with the ancient B’alam (jaguar) spirits if we did not sense a deep spirituality and wisdom inside him,” said an elder jaguar shaman named Mike the Melanistic. “He has shown us the way in matters of snacking and napping, and now as we welcome him to our ethereal fraternity, we shall accompany him on his journey to the stars, where he will drink of the deep knowledge of our ancestors.”
Buddy himself told a reporter he was looking forward to the ceremony.
“It’ll grant me, like, awesome powers and shit,” he said. “I’ll be able to disappear in a puff of mist like the jaguars do, my muscles will get bigger and, like, I’ll be able to sniff out snacks from up to a mile away. Pretty cool, if you ask me.”
At press time the jaguar shaman elders said the ceremony does not, in fact, grant such powers.
WASHINGTON – A new lawsuit accuses Ben & Jerry’s of “blatant, systematic discrimination” after the company released a line of ice cream and frozen treats for dogs, but not for cats.
“Felines around the world are understandably hurt and feeling betrayed by Ben and Jerry right now,” the public interest group Cats’ Rights And Protection (CRAP) said in a statement. “Not only are these supposedly ‘good boy’ canines a bunch of frauds, but now they get to enjoy ice cream and delicious frozen treats like their humans, while we cats are relegated to eating the same cardboard-tasting dry treats and the admittedly juicy — but not frozen — meat sticks we’ve always had.”
Seriously?
The cat advocacy group, which lobbies for more favorable policies toward all felids, big and small, said Ben and Jerry’s oversight is “part of a larger, societal problem of viewing cats as second-class citizens who either don’t understand or don’t care that we’re getting the short end of the stick.”
“We’re not stupid,” the CRAP statement said. “We know an inferior snack when we see it, and it’s obvious Ben & Jerry are biased in favor of those mangy dogs.”
Meowsiharu Morimoto, the Iron Chef of the feline world, called on other ice cream makers to step in and correct the Vermont ice cream maker’s offensive errors.
“It’s long been obvious to anyone in the feline culinary world that our options for desserts and digestifs have been woefully inadequate,” the Japanese cat said. “Does anyone think of us cats? Does no one ever wonder ‘Shouldn’t cats get into enjoy yummy, palate-cleansing ice cream after feasting on fish and poultry?’ The lack of consideration is criminal! Shame on you, Jerry and Ben!”
*sniff* “Nom noms?”
Another door to the exclusive world of tasty desserts seemed to be closed to cats on Tuesday when a large group of feline demonstrators was discouraged by Cookies and Cream, a cat who counts the Häagen-Dazs founders among her humans.
“We hear you and we see your signs,” Cookies told the crowd. “But we’re not really nebulously Nordic masters of delicious frozen delicacies. Häagen-Dazs doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s complete nonsense! My human is from the Bronx. He just made Häagen-Dazs up, thinking that if Americans saw his ice cream as vaguely Norwegian or Danish, they’d think it was quality stuff and would be willing to pay a premium. Well, they do, and we’re rich, bitches!”
The Ice Cream Makers of America, in an attempt to quell the controversy, issued a statement of its own.
“Cats: You’re lactose intolerant! You can’t take two licks without getting brain freeze! You just aren’t a market for ice cream, sorry,” the statement read.
Note: It turns out there is an ice cream for cats, or more accurately an icy fish-flavored treat intended to cool kitties down on hot summer days. Has anyone given it to their cat? And yes, cats are lactose intolerant, so we shouldn’t give ice cream to our cat(s) no matter how many people on Youtube think it’s amusing.
HOLLYWOOD — One of Hollywood’s most iconic studios has gotten a facelift, replacing its familiar roaring lion logo with a new feline face.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has used “Leo the Lion” as its mascot since the early 20th century merger between three production houses that vaulted the new company into Hollywood’s “big five” studios.
Now 97 years later, Leo has been replaced by a tiger — a Buddinese tiger, to be exact.
“While Leo has served us well for almost a century and audiences have come to love his iconic roar, we felt it was time for something more modern, more hip, to connect with younger audiences,” studio head Marcus Mayer told Variety. “When someone floated Buddy’s name during a brainstorming session with our PR people, it seemed like a no-brainer.”
While Leo’s roar was actually sampled from a tiger and overdubbed in sync with the lion opening his mouth — a little-known piece of cinema trivia — the new logo and title card will feature both Buddy the Cat’s famous likeness as well as his blood-curdling roar.
“The first time I heard Buddy’s roar, I got goosebumps and I almost shat myself,” admitted sound man Mark Mangini, who created the 1980s update of the MGM logo and the 2001 rebrand featuring Buddy. “I knew we had to convey that kind of power and ferocity for our brand by associating it with Buddy.”
Neither MGM nor Buddy’s representatives would comment on compensation for the world famous tabby cat, but a source close to the deal said it was worth “in the seven figures of wet food cans,” presumably all or most of it turkey, the ferocious cat’s preferred meal and currency. The deal would vault Buddy into the top 50 most wealthy cats in the world, with the majority of his wealth held in turkey-related assets.
Movie-going audiences are expected to see Buddy again late this summer with the highly-anticipated release of “Cat On Deck: A Little Buddy’s Bravery,” about a British ship’s cat named Simon who rallied the crew of the HMS Amethyst in 1949 after it was nearly sunk by a volley from a Chinese Liberation Army gun battery.
Sailors of the HMS Amethyst present Simon with an enormous fish dinner aboard the ship in 1949. The meal has been changed to turkey in the new biopic about Simon starring Buddy the Cat.
MIAMI — Buddy the Cat cruised to victory in the annual NCBA Slam Dunk Contest on Sunday, throwing down a thunderous jam that rattled the backboard.
“Boom shakalaka!” the announcers shouted as the 10-pound gray tabby returned to Earth, flexing his muscles before the camera in celebration.
“Buddy now dunking and spelunking, flying and energizing!” said color commentator and Hall of Fame Knicks guard Walt “Clyde” Frazier. “A serendipitous throw-down from the inimitable feline!”
Buddy the Cat soars to the rim during practice ahead of Sunday’s dunk contest.
For Buddy, the moment was vindication from his late-round loss to Stephen Purry in the three-point contest, when he missed a critical shot that rimmed out as time expired.
“Terrible!” ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith said after the three-point competition. “Buddy is the most overhyped ball player in all of catdom! He shouldn’t even have a roster spot. He’s going to embarrass himself during the dunk contest on Sunday, take that to the bank.”
After Buddy’s critic-silencing performance in the dunk contest, Smith revised his earlier hot take.
“Amazing!” Smith said. “Has there ever been a better player than Buddy the Cat? I don’t think so. That cat is so incredible, even dogs want to be him. I called it! I said he was gonna take it to the bank!”
The high-flying feline was a favorite topic of conversation among the analysts on TNT.
The mercurial Charles Barkley, who is normally stingy with praise for the game’s young players, nodded in agreement.
“That cat is incredible,” Barkley said. “I thought he was gonna be turrible, but he was tremendous. That dunk…and by the way, I love dunking Krispy Kreme in my coffee. Sit back with my newspaper and my Krispy Kreme and read the headlines. Can you believe what’s happening in Cuba right now? I can’t. People taking to the streets and…by the way, those cigars are terrific. You ever have a Cuban? So smooth…”
Feline humor, news and stories about the ongoing adventures of Buddy the Cat.
