Buddy the Cat’s female admirers, both feline and human, say he is a sexy beast.
NEW YORK — For the third night in a row, Buddy the Cat rolled onto his back, belched thunderously, and settled down for a restful nap surrounded by the devoured remnants of treats and snacks gifted to him for Valentine’s Day.
“It’s wonderful to be so loved that hundreds of Valentines Day packages are deliv…ooh, bacon-flavored crunchies!” Buddy said, breaking his train of thought after discovering six or seven of the little treats under a pile of opened and discarded packages.
“Where was I?” the bloated feline asked, blinking. “Oh yeah. It’s such a great feeling to have so many admirers that … mmmm, sandwich … every day brings new …* burp *! … gifts of food to sample and … oh, I love turkey gravy!”
The chubby tabby has been the recipient of countless Valentine’s Day gifts this year, reflecting his considerable popularity among females, both feline and human. He’s been eating his way through them with enthusiasm since the packages began arriving.
Witnesses report the well-fed feline was unable to complete a sentence without getting distracted and stopping to shovel food into his mouth mid-sentence.
“He only stops eating when he falls asleep,” one witness told PITB. “At this rate, his human will have to roll him around like a boulder because, frankly, I’m not sure anyone makes a cat carrier with material strong enough to lift him without ripping apart.”
As of press time, Buddy had fallen asleep with a sloppy hand-written note taped to his forehead, asking visitors to leave Valentine’s Day gifts in one of the 27 provided baskets.
“Activate your chakras and, like, serve me turkey and stuff.”
Buddy the Cat sits in a lotus position, whiskers relaxed, with a serene expression on his face.
“As we enter the quantum realm of the mind and traverse the sacred lacuna leading to the mysteries of the cosmos, let us allow ourselves to drift, to feel the subtle tug of gravity asserting itself upon our quantum existences, so that we may reach simultaneous quantum enlightenment within the subatomic and macro universes,” Buddy says softly as a room full of his disciples imitate his posture.
Suddenly the chubby cat opens his eyes, scanning the room.
“And now the time has come,” he says, “for a quantum nap. Who would please the spirit of the cosmos by providing a suitably soft napping substrate?:
Buddy regains his kitten form after communing with the quantum alchemists of Epsilon Eridani, who grant him special powers after circumambulating a triple star system within a quantum starship and stuff.
Every hand shoots up, with disciples — or “quantum mignons,” in Buddesian parlance — begging to be chosen.
The guru pads along the rows of disciples, wrinkling his nose to “discern the most comfortable chakras,” before settling in the lap of Maelle, a 20-year-old exchange student from France.
“I feel so blessed to be chosen,” she confesses as Guru Buddy climbs into her lap.
“I shall meditate,” Buddy tells her with a yawn, “upon your anima as the soothing stillness of sleep embraces me, fortifying your spirit with an increase in your alpha quotient.”
“And remember,” Buddy says, “should you feel the call of nature or the need to adjust your position, meditate upon your quantum quantumness to fortify your, uh, quantums so you don’t disturb me.”
The tabby cat settles down, then opens one eye.
“I almost forgot,” he says, raising his meows so all can hear him. “Please prepare my post-nap feast, for the quantum processes of my restorative beauty sleep make me famished. Serving me delicious food is most pleasing to the cosmic pantheon. I shall now spirit-walk the galactic plane and commune with the ancient alchemists of Epsilon Eridani to probe the mysteries of dark matter and KFC Extra Crispy. Can someone bring me a quantum pillow?”
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.
What would the Dictionary Man think of a modern American society dominated by the power and cuteness of cats?
Cats have taken over the internet, claim a mighty share of the $64 billion Americans spent on pet food in 2023, and have essentially installed themselves as the leisurely masters of 28 percent of American homes.
But it wasn’t always that way, and a look at the first-ever edition of Webster’s Dictionary reveals a very different attitude toward our furry overlords:
“The domestic cat needs no description. It is a deceitful animal, and when enraged, extremely spiteful. It is kept in houses, chiefly for the purpose of catching rats and mice.”
Wow. Whoever does feline PR should get a raise, because we’ve gone from “We tolerate the imperious little bastards because they’re good at killing rodents” to “Does my little angel want a snack? How about some ‘nip then? Anything for my bestest little pal!” in the span of two centuries.
Buddy 1, Noah Webster 0. Naturally.
Noah Webster, whose name is now synonymous with dictionaries, saw the effort to standardize spelling and pronunciation as central to formalizing an American linguistic identity distinct from our mother country. Or, as he put it, “[t]o diffuse an uniformity and purity of language in America” that would not only differentiate our English from England’s, but also unify the states at a time when many people still viewed the idea of a united states with skepticism.
By doing so, he hoped America would avoid the pitfall of dividing itself into regions of nearly mutually unintelligible dialects, a problem that plagues other countries. Consider the fact that India has almost 800 distinct languages and dialects, down from a staggering 1,652 in 1961 as hundreds of local languages died with the last generations of their speakers. Hindu, the country’s most popular language, is spoken only by about 43 percent of the population.
The goal, Webster wrote when he published his dictionary’s first edition, was “to furnish a standard of our vernacular tongue, which we shall not be ashamed to bequeath to three hundred millions of people, who are destined to occupy, and I hope, to adorn the vast territory within our jurisdiction.”
As dictionary.com notes, Webster wrote that passage in 1828 when the US population was just 13 million and vast swaths of what we now consider familiar territory was at the time largely unexplored wilderness.
His prediction of an America of 300 million people came true in 2006. Today there are approximately 335 million of us.
In other words, a hell of a lot has changed since the Connecticut born-and-raised Webster cobbled together a uniquely American system of spelling and pronunciation, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that attitudes toward cats have shifted so dramatically.
Still, we’d love to see the look on Webster’s face if we could bring him forward in time and show him how the “deceitful” and “extremely spiteful” little furballs have come to such prominence in American culture. What would Webster make of the spoiled modern house cat, with her condos, tunnels, toys, harnesses, bowls filled with salmon and duck, and even psychoactive recreational drugs for their enjoyment?
Bow before your feline overlords, Webster!
“We have made some edits, humans. See to it that the next edition includes this new and improved definition, or we shall withhold snuggles.”
“I’ve noticed everyone’s super stressed lately,” Buddy said. “People need hugs. I’m fluffy and adorable. It’s the perfect solution.”
NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat announced the launch of a new program, Hugs From Buddy, to “help the humans calm down a little bit, because things have gotten crazy.”
The normally mercurial tabby cat, whose concerns are typically limited to his own gastronomical satisfaction with meals and snacks, said he had the idea for Hugs From Buddy after watching the movie Civil War with his human and seeing footage of police and students clashing on college campuses.
“The world is crazy right now,” Buddy told reporters at a press conference in Manhattan. “War in Ukraine, Haiti, Gaza and Syria. People punching strangers on the street for Youtube ‘pranks.’ Protesters and police clashing. People threatening to kill one another, banning books they haven’t even read, Karening each other in the grocery store, brawling on passenger flights. Even dogs, bless those simple-minded beings, seem stressed!”
Buddy the Cat is offering hugs to anyone who needs them!
Buddy paused to address a bystander who was holding a pepperoni pizza.
“You gonna eat that? Here, give Buddy a slice, I’ll give you a hug,” he said, embracing the young woman before returning to the podium with a slice of pizza.
“Where was I?” he asked, chewing thoughtfully. “Oh! Right. The crazy, stressed out humans.”
He belched, then continued.
“I’m here today to offer myself up as the nation’s emotional support animal. If you’re in need of a hug or a snuggle, well, Little Buddy’s got you covered.”
Then he looked to the reporters, who were seated six or seven rows deep for the press conference.
“Look under your seats!” he said excitedly as the journalists mumbled in surprise, finding small gift-wrapped boxes there. “You, the young lady from CBS News! You get a hug! You, the angry guy from InfoWars! You get a hug! BBC, you get a hug too! You all get hugs!”
A print advertisement for the new Hugs From Buddy campaign.
The press conference was supplemented with an announcement of a $20 million television ad buy publicizing the Hugs From Buddy program, as well as a new site where the angry and stressed can log on, request a hug from Buddy, and make travel arrangements to bring him to their cities.
Reaction to the announcement was mixed.
A panel on Real Time with Bill Mahar concluded Buddy was sincere, trying to be helpful, and “absolutely adorable.”
But in a statement issued later Friday, catnip cartel Los Gatos International accused the New York feline of “shameless self-promotion, which he will undoubtedly parlay into goodwill for his own catnip empire,” while former Fox News host Tucker Carlson declared Buddy a threat to national security.
“Buddy the Cat is a dangerous tiger in kitten’s clothing,” Carlson declared on his X show as a chyron scrolled below with the headline: “IS BUDDY THE CAT WORKING FOR TERRORISTS?”
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson wasn’t convinced of the feline’s supposedly noble intentions.
“You might say Buddy the Cat is a danger to America, softening us up at precisely the time when we need to be tough to fight China, North Korea, Iran, the school board of Boise, Idaho, Taylor Swift, and the WNBA,” Carlson said, pounding a fist on his desk. “Up next, a conversation with Nick Fuentes. But first: Is Buddy the Cat a Chinese operative? Is he an agent of anti-American cat ladies who want us all to be hummus-eating vegans? Why does he ignore the beauty of the Moscow subway system? And is there any truth to the rumor that he’s working with the San-Ti from 3 Body Problem to help them invade Earth? Just asking questions here, folks. Nothing wrong with that.”
Pain In The Bud 