Buddy: ‘It Wasn’t Me!’

Cats don’t accept blame, George Carlin once observed. Even when you catch them red-handed.

A few nights ago I was watching the Yankees lose when Buddy jumped on the coffee table, settled into a loaf position and started doing what he does best — knocking things onto the floor.

Usually it’s remote controls, water bottles, my phone. Usually he has the good sense not to knock over glasses with liquid in them, or plates of food. But not always.

Wasabi peas

Bud turned, looked me in the eye, meowed and proceeded to swipe a tub of wasabi peas (just the like one pictured above) off the table. The package hit the ground and popped open, spilling the peas and their powdered wasabi coating all over the floor.

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“They came down in a big spaceship, and they said ‘Buddy, we’re gonna spill your human’s snacks and then blame it on you!’ And I said ‘No, aliens! Not on my watch!’ But they distracted me with turkey…”

Bud looked at me, trilled, then took off, perhaps put off by the scent of the wasabi.

A few seconds later he returned as I was sweeping them up, trilled again, and looked at me like “What happened, dude? Someone knocked over your wasabi peas? That’s terrible!”

If he could speak — you know, besides his incessant trilling and meowing — the conversation would probably go something like this:

“It was you! You did it!”

“No I didn’t.”

“I watched you do it! You made eye contact with me as you casually slapped them off the coffee table!”

“You’re mistaken. Perhaps it was another cat who looks like me.”

“You’re the only cat who lives here!”

“Then it was a chalupacabra.”

“You mean a chupacabra? Those don’t actually exist, you know. Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“Aliens, then. Yeah. Probably aliens. I keep trying to tell you, aliens are responsible for those hairballs. Remember the time you found puke in the bed? That was aliens too. I told them ‘Be gone, aliens! You’re not welcome here!’ but they just can’t help themselves….”

As George Carlin said, “Cats don’t accept blame.” Even when they do things right in front of you, apparently.

‘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.

Words of Wisdom From Buddy

Buddy shares his philosophy on life and slumber.

Hark! Upon this day rejoice, for we bring you wise words from Buddy the Cat!

We’re often told to follow our dreams, but how many shareable quotes on social media actually tell us how to do so? It turns out there’s a critical step: To follow your dreams, you need to have dreams first! This is where Buddy sagely instructs us to begin, surrendering to sweet slumber so our unconscious can tell us what we really want:

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An important and common sense bit of wisdom from Bud.

On Jan. 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated at 43 years old, making him the youngest president since Theodore Roosevelt — and the youngest elected president. (Roosevelt assumed the highest office after then-President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901.) While an impressive feat, it was Kennedy’s speech that continues to reverberate throughout history: “Ask not what your country can do for you,” the newly-sworn-in president told the nation. “Ask what you can do for your country.”

Those were simpler times, before we made the wise decision to politicize viruses, rip each other’s throats out over vaccines, and apprentice ourselves to intellectual giants like Tucker Carlson and Joy Ann Reid, tuning in nightly to drink of their limitless sagacity as they educate us on how to cherry pick facts that support our respective world views and ignore everything that contradicts them.

Still, there are lessons to be learned from those innocent times, and Buddy has repurposed Kennedy’s quote to give it a deeper, more profound (and useful) meaning:

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JFK has nothing on Buddy.

For our final bit of Buddesian wisdom, we return to the solution to so many of life’s problems: Sleep.

Why confront adversity when you can just take a nap? In this quote, Buddy advises the path of least resistance, a crucial strategy for anyone who finds themselves dealing with stress or anxiety:

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Sink to meet the challenges of life!