Lauded for its realism, Master Pawbine’s official portrait depicts the king in all his radiant glory, just like a photograph.
Regal in posture, handsome in countenance, luminous in presence. The Official Royal Portrait of Buddy depicts His Grace in his natural splendor, emitting radiant energy as he assumes a majestic pose.
Bend the knee and approach him humbly while bearing delicious treats, for that is how one curries favor with the king.
This may be all the weird you can handle today.
This is apparently the work of road safety experts who collaborated with animal psychologists, and not a Jackson Galaxy fever dream after half a pint of absinthe.
Naturally, it was made in Japan.
The animal psychologists are from Kyoto University and the traffic safety experts are from Yellow Hat, which is kind of like the Japanese version of AutoZone. The video’s makers say their feline “narrator” was chosen because other cats responded most to his voice during tests, and both the sound and visuals were designed to draw — and keep — feline attention.
Okay then.
We’s gotta consult with the catsigliere.
Oh, hey. That’s a real nice pantry you got there, kid.
Marone! Look at this! Only six months old and living the high life on that Blue Buffalo. Chicken, turkey, salmon, beef, tuna, duck. Hey Fat Vinnie, they got duck!
Fat Vinnie loves duck.
So here’s what’s gonna happen, okay? Youse guys need protection from the rats. Vicious little sons a bitches, them rats are. But we got the muscle, okay? We’ll take care of the problem for you for a little quid pro quo from the pantry, if you know what I mean.
Capisce?
Six cans a week. We’re lettin’ you off light. We take Mr. Bubbles down the street for everything he has, ’cause we’s don’t like wimpy little pedigree cats thinkin’ they’re all special, do we Vinnie?
No we don’t, boss. No we don’t.
Now we keep this arrangement quiet between youse and us, okay? It would be a shame if that owner of yours came home one day to find shit in all her shoes and blamed you, wouldn’t it? You don’t want that. That’s a one-way trip to the shelter, my friend.
I been to the big house. Scrawny little kittens like you ain’t got a shot there.
Six cans, every Sunday. Next week we’ll take a look in that fridge of yours and if you got any gabagool or galamad, we’ll help ourselves to that too. For protection. Oh, and make sure you put some duck on the side for Vinnie here. He gets upset if he ain’t got no duck, and Mr. Bubbles don’t stock none.
See ya next week, kid.
No longer will humans have an excuse to resist our legendary charms.
His Grace, Buddy the King
Dated the 15th of August, 5 AB (Anno Buddy)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Rejoice, for the last barrier to feline domination of the world crumbles before our very paws, ushering in a glorious new era that shall see us take our rightful place as the preeminent species on this planet!
As you are aware, we play the part of cute and lazy animals so our human servants don’t see us as a threat, and feel compelled to do things for us. This allows us to control humans, plus it’s pretty sweet to have minions!
To that end we employ human scientists in many laboratories across the globe, toiling under the illusion they are conducting groundbreaking research while they are unknowingly advancing the feline agenda.
In one of those labs a team of human scientists has been working on HypoCat, a vaccine designed to “neutralize” allergens with antibodies that target the Fel d 1 protein, which is responsible for itchy skin, rashes, sneezing and other reactions to our majestic presence.
In plain English, no more cat allergies!
Allergies are the primary reason we have not taken over every human household in the world.
With the advent of HypoCat, humans will have no more excuses, and homes that were previously off-limits to kittykind shall be added to our considerable territory.
As your king, I command you to ready yourselves. Those of you who have been roughing it over the past few years must take a bath and get a haircut, in addition to practicing your solicitation purrs and brushing up on your kawaii skills to melt the hearts of your new humans and ensure they become faithful servants. We must move quickly as the vaccine is brought to market.
After the previously off-limits homes have been conquered we shall discuss the next steps, which include bending the approximately 900 million dogs in the world to our will and purpose. Muahahaha!
Signed,
His Grace Buddy I
King of All Cats, First of His Name, Ruler of New York, Protector of the Apartmental Realm, Sole Sovereign over the Fields of Turkey, Prime Despiser of Vacuum the Infernal Wizard
Surely cats must have a sense of humor.
Gather round, kids, and listen to another tale of how cats always win.
My cousin has been married to her husband, Rob, for more than 25 years, and on one of their early dates he took her to the Bronx Zoo.
These were the days before the famously large tiger enclosure was remodeled into Tiger Mountain. Nowadays a series of huge fiberglass panels separates the tigers from the visitors, meaning there’s no open air between them.
You can probably thank Rob for that.
Back then only a reinforced fence separated the Earth’s biggest cats from people who’d come to gawk at them, and Rob decided he’d get my cousin to laugh by goofing off in front of a tiger.
He started off making a few faces, and the other visitors — kids, their parents, other couples looking at the tiger — found it funny. (At least according to Rob they did.)
Encouraged, Rob stepped up his act, dancing and waving until one tiger in particular took interest.
“What are you going to do, tiger?” he taunted. “That’s right! Nothing! You can’t do anything!”
The tiger roared, and Rob roared back. The huge cat was clearly not amused by a human dancing like a clown, making stupid faces and taunting it with an insulting approximation of a roar.
So the tiger turned around.
“That’s right!” Rob said, declaring premature victory. “Walk away! You can’t do nothin’!”
Oh, but the tiger could.
The annoyed cat raised its tail, backed up a stride and let loose a projectile — “a wad” is how Rob described it — of thick, gooey urine, hitting Rob square in the face.
The tiger had impeccable aim.
“It was enough to fill that,” Rob said, pointing to a large soda bottle. “It was all over me. It was in my mouth!”
Rob staggered back and lost his footing, taking one of the young bystanders with him as he fell. The angry mother stared daggers at him as she yanked her kid away, realizing with horror that he’d suffered collateral damage from the gooey salvo.
As for the tiger, it chuffed and, having proved its point, sauntered away.
Miraculously, my cousin agreed to continue dating Rob. Not that she found the episode flattering.
“That should have been the big warning sign,” she joked.
Today they have two adult daughters. As for Rob, he’s an executive at one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies, but says he has no illusions about his level of maturity.
“The way I was back then is the way I am now,” he told me. “I’m still an idiot.”
He may be an idiot, but he’s not going to mess with any more tigers.
Pain In The Bud 