Buddy the Cat wants his human to provide him with alternatives to his long-desired Roomba. Nothing fancy, of course.
Sept. 1, 2025 (11 A.B., or After Buddy) To: Big Buddy From: Little Buddy
Dear Buddy the Larger,
Since you have failed to secure a Roomba as my personal steed, as per my repeated demands, I have commissioned several other ideas for my personal conveyance.
Please find the enclosed image of a less complex, human-powered method of mobility fitting my station and status as an awesome feline. I have also attached an image of an appropriate seat designated for my use: humble yet regal, comfortable yet authoritative, offering supplicants the chance to to approach my feline personage while also clearly delineating the difference in power between myself, on my raised dais, and the lowly humans who seek my favor.
Note the dog pelt as a carpet beneath my throne…er, I mean my chair. Any dog who seeks an audience will be reminded that I’m, like, a jaguar and stuff, and they’d better be sufficiently deferential and pay tribute with delicious gifts.
Your friend and master,
Buddy
This design eschews all the complex and expensive machinery of a Roomba for good, old-fashioned human labor. I will require six Royal Buddy Guards: four to carry me at normal times, and six to carry me after I’ve feasted. I told the concept artist not to go too crazy with the ornamentation. Nothing too ostentatious, as you can see.
This design, inspired by Kublai Khan’s court in Khanbaliq (Cambulac), his winter capital. Unfortunately I couldn’t find much about the throne in his summer capital, Xanadu, but I have commissioned a designer to cook up something appropriate and will forward that to you shortly as well.
As you can see, nothing particularly fancy here, just good, sturdy, common sense necessities. I’m sure you’ll get right on it.
This year, Santa brought something really awesome for Little Buddy!
No, not a Roomba. A TinyTent! A beautiful, dark blue tiny tent with equally tiny mesh windows and and a tiny rain fly.
I put it together and called Bud over.
“Look, Bud!”
He meowed, tail up, clearly interested. But he didn’t go inside, so I got a few of his favorite treats and tossed them in there.
Bud padded over, stuck his head and front paws in the tent…and I realized he may be too fat for his TinyTent.
“TinyTent for Buddy?!
I need to get him in there. After all, the entire point was to put it on my desk and establish a clear Buddy Spot, a place where he can be right next to me and lounge comfortably without sitting in front of my monitor or on the keyboard.
He will fit. Cats are liquid, after all, and love a good snug spot. I just have to wait until the tent floor settles a bit and maybe add an old t-shirt.
Then Bud will have his Buddy Spot, so he can be cozy and remain within one foot of me while allowing me to write. (Yeah right.)
And if not…it’s diet time, fat boy! For both of us.
Special thanks to my nieces, who gifted Buddy his TinyTent. They remain the only two humans in the world Bud is terrified of, and I feel bad they can’t play with him much, but they love him.
In other Christmas gift news, my mom gave me this mug “from Bud,” and, well, it’s almost embarrassingly, uncannily accurate, and the image is not custom-made:
What?!
I mean, that’s a gray tabby, but it’s also his precise coloring, and the black t-shirt, red-brown hair and man bun are all me. (We’ll pause so you can laugh at me for the bun. It never would have happened if COVID didn’t shut down barbershops for an entire year and I didn’t watch Vikings during the pandemic, thinking “That Ragnar Lothbrok has cool hair! I wanna be a viking!”)
As for the rest of Christmas, I am spending it with family and I hope you are too, friends. I know some people feel they need to drink just to tolerate relatives, but I have always been grateful that my family is boringly normal. No fights, no arguments, and we’ve all agreed not to talk politics.
I hope your gatherings are similarly uneventful and you get to enjoy the holidays and your families.
And now we leave you with a lively and festive number from Buddy the Cat’s Christmas songbook, originally published in 2022. It’s meant to be sung to the Tony Bennett version of My Favorite Things, a true classic!
Buddy’s Favorite Things
Temps in my bowlses and snacks in the kitchen
Taunting the street cats and smacking some kittens
Leaving the neighbor’s dog tied up in strings
These are a few of my favorite things!
Bubble wrap, peanuts and UPS boxes
4 a.m. zooms when I scream like a rocket
Waking my human with songs that I sing
These are a few of my favorite things!
At nail clip time, things I dislike
When I’m really mad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad!
Calico booties and slices of Gouda
Ambushing like I’ve been launched by bazooka
No consequences ’cause I am the king!
These are a few of my favorite things!
Screeching in anguish at doors closed between us
Shattering Wise Men and statues of Jesus
I helped myself to the buffalo wings
These are a few of my favorite things!
Meow at my bowl as if I’ve been forgotten
Screeching in panic ’cause I see the bottom
Gorging on kibble till I am puking
These are a few of my favorite things!
When I’m told no, ’cause I broke those
When my dad is mad
I’ll get away with my favorite things
Because I’m a real cute cat!
It’s International Cat Day, which means you should totally do awesome stuff for your cat.
Hello there, PITB readers! I have taken over the blog from my inept human on this most auspicious of days, International Cat Day, to offer some great suggestions on how to honor your feline overlord!
Let’s get right into it, shall we?
10) Human snacks: Let’s be serious here for a moment. I’m sick of getting the same old crunchy treats, meaty sticks, soft Buddy Biscuits, Churus and party mix. I want cheese! I want filet mignon! I want roast turkey! I want a cheeseburger! Day after day we have to sit here, our mouths watering as you humans stuff your faces with all sorts of food we would love to eat. Well, today’s the day. Start cookin’, servants!
Yes! More cheese, hold the lettuce and tomatoes. Credit: Juan Santos/Pexels
9) Roombas. That’s right. It’s 2024 and I still don’t have a Roomba. I’m very angry about that. When do I get my mighty steed? Let it be today!
8) Catnip and silvervine. Sure, we get these on other days, but this day absolutely must not go by without you giving us at least a few doses of the good stuff. Hurry up! I need to get my fix!
7) Sweet cat drip that shows you’re owned by a cat. My Big Buddy just got two t-shirts. One shows a roaring jaguar with the word “Savage,” because I am savage, and the other is a kitty samurai with a cool sword. Aside from the fact that this is premium drip, everyone will know that you answer to a fluffy, benevolent overlord back home. That’s what’s important.
The drip.
6) A throne. I’ve wanted a throne since I was a kitten. It doesn’t need to be an Iron Throne with the melted swords of everyone I’ve conquered, a la Game of Thrones. It can be something humble, made of gilded metal, velvet cushions and maybe a lion crest or cool tiger heads on the paw rests. I’m not picky as long as it looks awesome. What’s important is the symbolism and comfort.
5) Hire a mariachi band to parade through the streets hoisting an image of your cat, performing songs in your feline overlord’s honor. This is another humble offering that says “I serve a cat, and I’m proud of it!” When people ask what the hell is going on, hand them Cuban cigars and say “We are celebrating el jefe!” They’ll know who you mean.
“We sing of the great, wise, handsome and meowscular Buddy the Cat!”
4) Hire a portraitist to paint your kitty. Again, it doesn’t have to be extravagant. As a humble cat, I don’t mind being portrayed as a naval commodore, a king, a great warrior of world renown, or a massive tiger. The important thing is that it looks cool and you hang the picture above the couch in the living room. Get on it, human.
3) Massages. Schedule them throughout the day, sprinkling them around naps and meal times. Do you know how satisfying it is to enjoy a nice massage after Food O’Clock? I like to have my chin rubbed and the top of my head scratched while being told what a good, handsome, awesome, amazing, handsome, meowscular feline I am.
2) Toys. Not just for Christmas, you know. In fact, go ahead and consider this Kitty Christmas In Summer. Wand toys, track toys, new boxes, those little plastic ring things from milk gallon containers, stuffed animals that we can hunt and murder like the apex predators we are. You don’t have to wrap them, just bend the knee and present them as tribute. You’ll have our thanks, and our favor.
1)Hang out with us! It really is that simple. The most important thing you can do on International Cat Day is spend time with your cat! Many of the above suggestions fall under this category, including playing with us, giving us massages and reading epic poems you’ve composed about us. Personally I like settling down to nap on top of my Big Buddy after a massage. There’s something about having my chin scratched that makes me start yawning, and there’s no better place to nap than on my human, where it’s safe and there’s body heat and he can’t get up to use the bathroom because it would disturb me. That’s love.
I hope these suggestions are helpful! I’ve tried to list really easy, basic, humble stuff, but if you feel like constructing a 426-room cardboard box castle, well, I won’t stop you. In fact, that would be pretty cool. But like I said, the most important thing is that we get to hang out with you. And eat filet mignon.
Cats are not amused by the results of the survey by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
Humans are in “deep doo doo” after a study out of Denmark concluded people are more attached to their dogs than to felines, Buddy the Cat warned on Monday.
More than 2,000 dog owners and cat servants were surveyed by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
The researchers used the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, or LAPS, which asks yes or no questions like “I consider my pet my best friend” and more specific questions like how much respondents are willing to pay in veterinary costs to save the lives of their pets. The participants — who hailed from the UK, Denmark and Austria — were about evenly split between dog and cat people but were willing to do more for their dogs, the survey found.
While people in the UK were slightly biased toward dogs, Austrians had a more pronounced preference and Danes were much more likely to do things like insure their dogs, consider them family members and pay large veterinary bills. The differences in attitude by country indicate the factors are cultural, according to Peter Sandøe, a bioethicist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the paper.
In a statement the Mischievous Enigmatic Overlords of the World (MEOW) called the survey results “deeply troubling” and said they call into question “10,000 years of glorious history in which we have allowed humans to serve us.”
Cats are demanding a Roomba for every feline as a basic starting point for negotiations, to be followed by “the real list” of gifts humans must bestow on them.
“It’s going to take a lot [for humans] to get back into our collective good graces after this pathetic showing,” Buddy told reporters during an afternoon press conference.
Asked for specifics, Buddy sighed and leaned forward on the podium.
“The usual extra treats aren’t going to cut it this time,” he warned. “We’re talking Roombas, and not cheap ones. Top end models! We’re talking permission to scratch everything with impunity. Filet mignon! Fresh trout! Little cocktail umbrellas in our bowls and toothpicks in our pate! I’m partial to those little plastic swords, myself. I love those things.”
The mercurial tabby said he’d already warned his own human: “Not a snuggle, not a purr, not a scritch until I start to see some evidence that he’s not among those cold-hearted British, Denmarkians and Australians who claim they love their dogs more.”
A vacation to a warm locale where humans serve cat-friendly cocktails “would be a small step toward remediating the insult” of the Copenhagen study’s results, Buddy said. Pictured: An artist’s interpretation of Buddy enjoying a tropical vacation.
Told the study included Austrians, not Australians, Buddy waved a paw dismissively.
“Whatever,” he said. “The country where people say g’day mate and gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger. Same difference.”
Told that Austria and Australia are on two entirely different continents, Buddy fixed the reporter with a hard stare.
“Do you want to be on our shit list too? Because I can assure you, Miss Journalist, I can poop in a pair of high heels just as easily as a pair of Adidas.”
Reached for comment on Monday, Man’s Best Friend spokesman Buster the Beagle said he hopes the survey results mean humans approve of canines.
“We’re good boys, right?” he asked. “Is that what this means? Because we really want to be good boys!”
Buddy the Cat sings holiday and Christmas classics from a feline perspective.
Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, I am going to destroy you! Oh Christmas tree, oh Big Buddy, I am going to annoy you! Got yummies in my bowl to taste, and ornaments and lights to break Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, I am going to destroy you!
Your branches point so high and straight Just begging for a swipe to take Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree I will annihilate you!
Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches? Oh Christmas tree, oh Big Buddy, I am going to faceplant it! The Hallmarks will shatter and break, I’ll make disaster of this place Oh Christmas tree, oh Big Buddy, I am going to annoy you!
You sparkle like the morning dew Look mangled when I’m done with you Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree What fun it is to wreck stuff!
Buddy’s Favorite Things
Temps in my bowlses and snacks in the kitchen Taunting the street cats and smacking some kittens Leaving the neighbor’s dog tied up in strings These are a few of my favorite things!
Bubble wrap, peanuts and UPS boxes 4 a.m. zooms when I scream like a rocket Waking my human with songs that I sing These are a few of my favorite things!
At nail clip time, things I dislike When I’m really mad I simply remember my favorite things And then I don’t feel so bad!
Calico booties and slices of Gouda Ambushing like I’ve been launched by bazooka No consequences ’cause I am the king These are a few of my favorite things!
Screeching in anguish at doors closed between us Shattering Wise Men and statues of Jesus I helped myself to the buffalo wings These are a few of my favorite things!
Meow at my bowl as if I’ve been forgotten Screeching in panic ’cause I see the bottom Gorging on kibble till I am puking These are a few of my favorite things!
When I’m told no, ’cause I broke those When my dad is mad I’ll get away with my favorite things Because I’m a real cute cat!
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas Everywhere I look Take a look at the Christmas tree, it’s been redesigned by me And the lights are broken!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas Coal in every sock It’s beginning to look a bit like I’ve had too much catnip And now I’m dizzy!
A Santa Claws surprise and a Roomba for me to ride Is the wish of Buddy the Cat A box to take a nap and another to take a crap What do you think of that? And my human can hardly wait for vacation!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas With every wrap I shred Now it’s nap time for me, underneath the Christmas tree Then I’ll demand treats!
Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas My human gave to me A can of delicious turkey
On the second day of Christmas My human gave to me Two window perches And a can of delicious turkey
On the third day of Christmas My human gave to me Three cozy boxes Two window perches And a can of delicious turkey
On the fourth day of Christmas My human gave to me Four kneading blankets Three cozy boxes Two window perches And a can of delicious turkey
On the fifth day of Christmas My human gave to me Five golden bowls Four kneading blankets Three cozy boxes Two window perches And a can of delicious turkey
On the sixth day of Christmas My human gave to me Six Chewy orders Five golden bowls Four kneading blankets Three cozy boxes Two window perches And a can of delicious turkey
On the seventh…zzzz… …zzzz…
Hey, Bud?
…zzz…turkeh…zzzz…
Bud!
…zzz…
Well, it looks like the catnip and tryptophan have done their thing and the little guy is asleep, dreaming of turkey and presents. Don’t worry, he’ll be singing these songs for five more days. Five more days?!?! Ugh…
Pain In The Bud 