“Hahaha! You humans are so funny with your overactive imaginations!
Your ears and eyes deceive you, human! I was not trying to scratch the screen door again.
I told you, those tears in the screen are from a chalupacabra! I said ‘Look here, chalupacabra, this is Buddy Territory. You’re not welcome here! Get!’
But you know those chalupacabras, they never listen. Stubborn animals!
Pictured: A vicious Chalupacabra that scratches the screen door and blames poor Buddy. Credit: PITB
My claws are NOT stuck in the screen, okay? I’m just resting my paw. I can get free any time I want, it’s just that I don’t want to right now.”
Forty-six minutes later:
“I’m right here, you know. I see you eating that ice cream sandwich. I see how it is. ‘Snacks for me, but not for thee.’ Well I have news for you, human! I’m going to sit here and stare at you all mean-like until you procure a Buddy snack.
With artificial intelligence making rapid progress over the past year, we asked cats what they think about a future where we depend on intelligent machines.
“Can AI open cans? No? Then why are we having this discussion?” – Bryce ‘Mice Dice’ Price, 8, executive chef
“At the moment, humans remain catdom’s best solution for producing reliable, easily-manipulated servants.” – Meowchio Kaku, 16, scientist
“Imagine the boxes a superintelligent AI could design!” – Anthony Purrcelli, 5, firehouse mascot
“If AI takes over more mundane tasks, that means more nap time for us!” – Peaches, 9, conductor
“If yums are more delicious in the Matrix, then why not? Plug me in!” – Ferrari, 3, accessories model
“I’ve already gone to war with the AI that dispensed my kibble. We had a fundamental disagreement about the frequency and quantity of yums it was dispensing. Let the smoking pile of rubble be a warning to other machines who would challenge felines for Earthly supremacy.” – Meowchal Douglas, 21, investment banker
I’m pretty sure Buddy regrets teaching me all about animal cognition and emotion, which led me to adopting a vegetarian diet in 2015.
He’s never gone on the kitchen counters (such a good boy!) and when he does express interest in the fridge, it’s more of a rote status check, a defeatest confirmation that there’s nothing of interest for him in there aside from cheese.
But Bentley has no such scruples. The feisty feline from Oregon got his greasy little paws on a pizza one night and loved it so much that he’s become obsessed with the microwave, which is where he found that fateful slice.
Bentley’s human, Britney Shizo, said she put the leftover pizza in the microwave, then forgot about it until she returned to the kitchen and found Bentley happily feasting.
“The microwave is wide open and the pizza is on the floor and it’s gone, pretty much,” Shizo said.
Footage of Bentley, which has since gone viral, shows him determinedly trying to open the microwave door, gripping the handle with both front paws and using all the strength in his little body to get to that sweet, delicious pizza.
But, alas, he’s foiled by a child safety lock, which he refuses to accept as he strains, pulls and pushes the microwave in the hilarious footage:
The star of the internet’s newest viral cat video knows what she wants, and she isn’t going to part with it easily.
In the video below, kitty growls at the humans who want to take away her delicious chicken wing. Ultimately it requires three people to take the wing from her, and she licks her lips before the evil humans can wipe the hot sauce away too:
Personally I’d have let her keep it. It’s already in her mouth. Clearly she’s not bothered by the hot sauce. And maybe it’ll be a good lesson if she eats the wing and doesn’t feel well afterward, so she won’t go for a plate of wings next time.
This reminds me of the time I made a late-night Burger King run when Bud was just a kitten, before I went vegetarian. I came home, unwrapped my burger, removed the fries from the bag and went to the kitchen for napkins or ketchup or something, only to return and find the burger had vanished!
Bud left a trail of discarded pieces of bread leading to his eating nook, where he’d unceremoniously dumped the rest of the bun.
It was my fault and it was funny, so how could I be mad at the little guy? I don’t remember if the burger upset his stomach, but I do clearly remember he paid dearly and learned another kitten lesson when he scarfed down a bunch of pistachios. He even ate the closed nuts, shells and all! Several hours later he was in his litter box, straining like someone who’d taken three times the recommended dose of ex lax and hadn’t pooped in a week.
Sometimes you can’t teach things. If an upset stomach or a rough evening in the litter box is the price of a lesson, and the food isn’t going to kill your feline friend, why not let them learn the hard way?
As for Buddy, would he have turned into the strapping and meowscular cat we know today if he hadn’t learned those lessons?
I’m a cat. Time means nothing to me. If I want to pass the days curled up in a ball snoozing contentedly, or run around like a possessed kitten while yowling at 4 am, I will. I do what I want.
Try not to get so hung up on things like schedules. The question of whether time flows like a river or exists as discreet quanta is one for the physicists and philosophers. Hakuna Katana, my friend. It means “No worries” in Japanese.
Let yourself get crazy. Bring out the laser laser and let the catnip and snacks flow freely. I’ll just hide your phone and your watch so we can enjoy ourselves.
My Meals Must Be Served Precisely On Schedule!
I knew it! I knew when the clock struck 3:57 pm and you still weren’t moving that my dinner would be late. I tried to warn you by shrieking at you at 20-second intervals, but to no avail.
I have to be honest, I just don’t see the urgency or effort on your part, and that concerns me. We have an agreement that two bowls — one with fresh water and the other with yummy wet food — will be set down in my eating nook no later than 4 pm. Not 4:33 or 4:17 or even 4:02.
FOUR O’CLOCK.
You may not think observing a strict yums schedule is important, but it is.
My body is a fine-tuned machine, human. I didn’t get this tigeresque physique by playing fast and loose with the rules, or by delaying the ingestion of crucial proteins and nutrients.
Do better.
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.
Feline humor, news and stories about the ongoing adventures of Buddy the Cat.
Schedule? What are you talking about, human?
Pain In The Bud 