Buddy – Page 54 – Pain In The Bud

CatPeople Magazine Names Buddy 2022’s Sexiest Cat Alive!

More than 4.3 million felines signed an online petition demanding Buddy as 2022’s Sexiest Cat Alive.

A new year, a new milestone.

Acknowledging overwhelming demand — along with a letter-writing campaign and an online petition with 4.3 million signatures — CatPeople magazine named Buddy the Sexiest Cat Alive for 2022.

The cover of the new issue, which was already flying off stands in its first day on sale, features the “really, really ridiculously good looking” feline in close-up as he smolders in front of the camera. Fear not, ladies: The issue also includes a 12-page photo spread with plenty of photos of the furry beefcake showing off his considerable meowscles.

“I’ve reached a point in my life where I feel balance,” Buddy told the magazine. “My career as a model is going really well, I’ve become a bankable action star and I eat as much turkey as I want. Life is good.”

The one thing missing from Buddy’s life so far is love. But with millions of posters of the handsome feline adorning the walls of kitten and adult cat bedrooms alike all over the world, it only seems a matter of time before Buddy meets his match.

The silver tabby, who fields more than 600 letters and marriage proposals from female admirers each week, told CatPeople he’s still waiting for “that special lady” to come along — perhaps a Calico, a Tortoiseshell or a fellow tabby. He also counts tigresses and jaguaresses among his most vocal supporters and was recently seen holding paws with a glamorous and mysterious young Brazilian jaguarundi.

In the meantime audiences can’t get enough of Buddy, and he’ll return to cinemas later this month in The Turkening II: No Harm No Fowl opposite Penélope Mewz, while a long-awaited summer romcom will see him paired with Meowla Kunis.

Buddy Snacks! — Buddy is the face of 44 different snacks in Japan, earning him a cool 1.4 billion ¥ in 2021.

Admirers can also catch Bud in commercials for his new line of cat food, a fashion collaboration with rapper P-Awz, and a range of products in Japan, where Buddy is a popular pitchman for Japanese favorites like Kameda Seika’s turkey-flavored barbecue potato chips, Lotte’s milk-chocolate covered salmon, Meiji’s beef-flavored dipping sticks, and Uniqlo’s urban feline line of street wear.

What’s next for the multi-talented moggie?

Buddy says he plans to pen an autobiography in the near future, and he’s working on his debut album, Napping in the Moonlight, on Tails Up Records. But on a recent afternoon he was just enjoying a low key lunch with his agent in Hollywood when a group of young admirers spotted him and asked for pawtographs, for which he happily obliged.

One of those admirers, a Siamese named Cleo, nearly fainted when Buddy handed his pawtographed photo back to her.

“My friends aren’t gonna believe this!” she said. “This is going up right now on my Meower profile!”

Read more in this week’s issue of CatPeople, available now.

Point/Counterpoint: ‘Get Away From My Litterbox, I Need Privacy!’ vs ‘How Dare You Use The Bathroom Without Me?’

Buddy the Cat debates Buddy the Cat

Get Away From My Litterbox, I Need Privacy!

Dude. Put the top back on my litterbox and go away! I have some excrementory functions to attend to and you know I don’t like you hovering in the vicinity while I’m taking care of business.

I’m serious! Get out!

How would you like it if I could hear you straining over the sand or burying your biz? I can’t even go number one unless I know I’m by myself! You need to make like a tree and go into another room or I’m gonna make this whole place my personal litter box. Go on! Shoo!

Do they not teach basic manners to humans anymore?

How Dare You Use The Bathroom Without Me?

Dude. I’m hurt. Betrayed. I can’t believe you went to the bathroom without me and I had to stand outside, crying and scratching the door for 30 seconds until you let me in.

You know this is a group activity. It always has been. You sit on the throne and I watch you, occasionally interjecting with a meow.

Oh, privacy schmivacy! You poop, I poop, we all poop. What’s a little poop between friends?

No! Put down the newspaper! Put down the phone! You’re being rude. Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to bury your face in your phone while you’re at the dinner table or on the toilet? It’s antisocial. Now I have yet to hear a good explanation for why you went in here without me in the first place … Do we need to have another talk about closed doors again?

Point-Counterpoint presents two essays taking opposing positions on a topic. Join us next week, when Buddy the Cat will debate Buddy the Cat on another important topic.

‘Sleep Scritches’: Buddy’s Latest Innovation

Buddy has devised a method to get me to scratch his head without even waking me.

I’m not exactly sure when I first consciously noticed it, but over the last six months I’ve woken up in odd circumstances in the middle of the night: My hand is raised and Buddy is there, nuzzling against it and purring.

It started with the Budster nudging my hand with his muzzle, then somehow he got me to raise my hand without waking me.

Not content to stop there, Bud has somehow engineered what I call “Sleep Scritches,” in which he triggers me to pet him while I’m unconscious.

It’s really weird to wake up on your back with your hand raised and your cat sounding like a motorboat as he guides his forehead beneath your fingertips. It’s also weird to wake up with said cat sitting on your chest and licking your nose or your beard.

Buddy the Clever — “You shall pet me even whilst you are asleep, human servant!”

Let no one say Bud isn’t a clever cat when he wants to be, which is basically whenever there’s food, attention or affection involved.

He saw a problem, which is that it’s really difficult to wake me up once I’m properly asleep. And he solved that problem not by waking me up, but by getting what he wants without having to wake me. He does the same thing when dealing with my tendency to toss and turn in my sleep: He finds a nook wherever one is available and burrows in when it’s cold, or simply drapes himself on top of me when it’s warm.

Score another one for feline ingenuity.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he’s got me sleepwalking to the treat cabinet every night.

Of course I could set up a camera to record me while I sleep a la Paranormal Activity, but I’m afraid I might see him grooming his butt before licking my face while I remain unconscious. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Buddy Becomes Old Italian Guy After Binging Sopranos

“Marone, I get up three, four times a night to go to the bathroom!” Buddy says.

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat approached his dining nook, took an exploratory sniff of the wet food in his bowl and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Ugh! Marone!” the exasperated cat said. “This salmon smells terrible! What does it take to get a bowl of fresh gabagool around here, huh? Is it too much to ask for a nice chicken cutlet or some soppressat?”

The silver tabby has been arbitrarily dropping vowels from his words, peppering his meows with corruptions of southern Italian slang and complaining about his food more than usual after binge-watching the first two seasons of The Sopranos with his human, sources said.

“You’re bustin’ my balls over here,” Buddy meowed to his human, expressing sudden displeasure with cat food he’s been eating for years.

Witnesses reported odd changes in Buddy’s behavior over the holidays when he began watching episodes of HBO’s classic, but it wasn’t until he completed the second season that the mercurial cat built his own bocce court and began wearing a pinky ring on his front right paw.

A gold chain in place of a collar and a newsboy-style flat cap completed the look.

“Me and the boys, we like to hang out at Satriale’s and the Bada Bing in Jersey,” Buddy explained. “Though if you ask me, they got too many of them human broads at the Bing. It ain’t gonna kill ’em to mix it up a little with a Calico now and then.”

The previously non-Italian feline has been running in new circles as well, sources said, and has been frequently seen in the passenger seat of a Lincoln Town Car owned by Fat Vito Catterelli, as well as an I-ROC Z28 owned by Dino Felinzano.

Fat Vito the Cat — Fat Vito and his human, Giana.

His human, Big Buddy, said that things had “gone too far” when he arrived home one day to find Buddy with his feet up on the dinner table, a copy of the New York Post in his paws, and a radio playing WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog, who were arguing about Mike Piazza.

“Hey, Grande Compagno!” the cat said, eyeing his human over the newspaper. “How about a little melted mootsarell on top of my chicken tonight, eh? A little sauce. A chicken parm pâté, if you will.”

Told he wasn’t going to get “chicken parm pâté,” Buddy seemed unperturbed.

“Okay then, the galamad,” he said, nonchalantly flipping to the sports section.

“Do you even know what ‘galamad’ is, you little clown?” Big Buddy asked.

Buddy stopped flipping the pages of the Post, pausing with the newspaper as a shield over his eyes.

“It’s, uh, some kind of…pork. Yeah! Pork, obviously,” the flustered cat said. “From Arthur Ave.”

“It’s fried squid, dummy! You’re not gonna eat fried squid!”

Buddy shrugged and went back to flipping the pages.

“Then I guess,” he said, “you’ll have to make the chicken parm.”

What Do Cats Think When We Meow To Them?

A Redditor shared a video of her cat who was apparently delighted when he realized she spoke meow.

We’ve all done it. Whether we’re bored, curious or just exasperated, every cat servant has meowed back to their furry overlord at some point, and the reactions of our feline friends run the gamut from pleasantly surprised to utterly confused.

The latter would be an apt description for Buddy’s reaction the first time I meowed back at him. I do recall a friendlier “conversation” in meow between us when he was a kitten and laying adorably on his back atop my desk, playfully reaching out at my fingers with his tiny paws as I typed.

However, it feels like our first real meowningful exchange came one day during a conflict: I needed to get some articles done on deadline, and Buddy was insistently pointing out it was dinner time.

Like all cats, if he doesn’t see some action starting 15 or 20 minutes before Official Meal Time, he makes sure I know Yum O’Clock is rapidly approaching. That’s exactly what he was doing as I pounded the keyboard, trying to tie up a pair of 750-word stories.

“Mmmmmrrrrrrrowww?” Buddy questioningly meowed, looking up at me. “Mmmmmrrrreeeowww? Mrrrrrrrrroooowww!”

Translation: “Uh, Big Bud? Dude? My yums aren’t here. Where’s my food, dude? Where’s my food? Where’s my FOOD?!?!”

He kept at it, increasing the volume, frequency and urgency of his meows to the point where you’d think he was dying, and I couldn’t ignore him any longer.

“Mrrrrrowww!” I mockingly meowed back to him. “I’m Buddy, and my dinner might be late! Mrrrrowwww! So terrible!”

He sat there dumbfounded, and I used those fleeting seconds as best I could. Then he decided that, yes, I was mocking him, and he made his displeasure known.

“MMMMRRROOOWWW! Mrrrrrrrppp!”

“Mrrrrooowww! My dinner isn’t here yet! The world is ending!”

Back and forth it went until he flopped onto my desk, breaking my line of sight with the monitor, and began protesting even more insistently.

This short video from Reddit shows a woman having a meowversation with her cat, who has a decidedly Buddesian look to him:

When your human finally understands you from aww

This kitty’s even got a white bib similar to Buddy’s!

He seems shocked that his human is finally singing The Song of His People, growing more insistent with each exchange.

“So she does speak the sacred tongue of Meow! It is a miracle! Wait, has she been listening to me complain about her all this time and I didn’t know it?!?”

Both reactions are amusing: Human servant laughing uncontrollably, cat having a revelatory moment.

Longtime readers of this blog will remember I once posted an audio clip of Bud and I having a conversation in meow. WARNING: Bud’s roar is extremely tiger-like and may trigger some listeners. If you’re uncomfortable with the sounds of savage and intimidating animals, please consider skipping this recording: