Things that are okay to do as a cat, but not as a human

"Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings." --Oliver Herford

Cats are notorious for doing annoyingly cute things that make us laugh and feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, but at the same time wonder why we ever adopted them in first place. As those of you who read my blog regularly know that I have had some interesting encounters with cats recently. This time the culprit is named Natasha. She is my boyfriend's (Will) cat. For some reason she thinks it is okay to bang on the door at 5am and run on the bed like a maniac when we are fast asleep in dream land. She's the inspiration for this story. Enjoy :)

Things that are okay to do as a cat, but not as a human being:

1. Bite people when they attempt to give you affection.

Cats are notorious for letting you pet them a specific number of times before they attack your hand. This mystical number changes each petting session and you will never be given any warning.

It's even worse when it happens with people... That would just be horrible.

2. Lick yourself in front of people

How cats can lick themselves for hours I will never know. I do know that it is hilarious to pet them right after they finish. The dirty look like they are calculating how best to murder you without getting their fur dirtier than your hand just made it is priceless.

3. Sit on someone

Cats always find the most awkward way to sit on you right when you are in the middle of reading something or are about to get up. Once they're on you, you're trapped by a purring ball of fur that happens to have retractable claws of fury.

4. Knock over everything on a table for no reason

We've all had it happen. Sometimes it scares us to death when a lamp falls on your face in the middle of the night. Sometimes we think someone is breaking into the house, but it's really the cat parading around knocking your things on the floor while staring you in the eye daring you do stop them. Can you do anything about it? No. Why? Because they're cats.

5. Wake people up at 5am. 

Whether it's the cats making loud noises that makes it sound like a troupe of tap dancing sumo wrestlers are on your roof or right next to you in bed or the melodious screech of cats singing you the song of their people at the top of their lungs there is no denying that they are doing it just to enjoy our reactions. My personal experience with this has not been fun. EVERY SINGLE TIME I spend the night at Will's the cat decides to learn out to play the drums on his closet door and makes a surprisingly loud noise. Guess what time she does this? 3am. Every. Single. Time. Nothing will stop her. She is determined to make sweet sweet music with that door. Only it's not sweet. It's horrifying to wake up to and makes me want to lock her out of the room. Number 6 is what happens as a result of locking her out. I've chosen the lesser of 2 evils... number 5... 

PS I tried to replicate (obviously) the noise Natasha makes on that door... I came nowhere close. She's got some sort of noise making voodoo that she does. 

6. Crying...or should I say meowing outside of doors

I don't know why cats think that because a door is closed that they need to A) beat it down mercilessly because how DARE you shut me out of a room and B) why they have to sit outside the door constantly testing their opera skills in how loud and proud they can meow. For such a small creature they can really make a ridiculous amount of noise. Of course they do this at stupid o clock in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep.

7. Bringing dead animals to you

Now I don't mean the friendly neighborhood "oh hey I went hunting here is a lump of meat for your freezer." I mean the "hey I just killed this with my bare hands and dropped it by your feet. Hope you don't mind the trail of blood and gore I left all over the yard and my fur that I'm about to rub all over your legs and furniture for you to discover later. Enjoy!"

Yes that is my dad holding a dead chipmunk. Don't worry it died of natural causes. The last thing I need is for people to think my dad has a vendetta against cute and cuddly chipmunks. Turns out he found it (dead) on top of a filing cabinet in a blanket where it went to live out its last hours. I guess it got trapped in the garage and well... ended up very flat and lifeless. He came into my room (my Dad not the chipmunk turned zombie) with a goofy grin and pulled that dude from behind his back. Honestly I'm used to dead animals being randomly placed in the house. Mostly in the freezer and occasionally his office, but bringing them into my room as I'm typing a blog was A) a bad choice for him since his story is now global and B) caught me very off guard as my room is generally dead body free...unless it's spiders... then it's a war zone... 

8. Hide/sleep in awkward places

I cannot say how many times I've walked into a room and done a double take because the top of my door or a drawer suddenly grew fur and claws. Unfortunately I can say that I've unknowingly sat down in places where I thought my feet would be safe from attach since there couldn't possibly be space underneath the couch and gotten my feet chewed on. Sometimes discovering a cat in odd places is amusing, other times I'm convinced they are testing your hearts ability to not fail on you just in case they need to know for their future evil master plans. 

9. Sit on computers

Computers are sources of heat therefore cats love them. However, they ALWAYS want to lay on them when you have a particularly urgent matter to attend to on that computer. You know your computer is about to be blitzkrieged when you sense you're being watched. You turn your head and turn back to the computer to realize that the cat has tricked you, is now sitting on your keyboard with your hands trapped underneath the cat, its tail is in your face, AND the cat is looking the cutest/most innocent it has ever looked since being a kitten. It's not fair.

Cats clearly are going to do what they want, when they want, and how they want. Just as clearly, humans cannot do the same things otherwise we would probably be considered nuts. Some people love cats and I am personally a dog person, but cats who don't do the things listed above are alright in my book. I even have a soft spot for Natasha who does ALL of those things... except bringing me dead animals, but I'm convinced that's next and will also be at 3am. Although there is nothing we can do to prevent any of these things I do have some advice. Get a dog.

"Never try to out-stubborn a cat."--Robert A. Heinlein