Every IBer has a pet, even if some of them are leftover science fair projects or socks so old that they qualify as alive. - Schools

ALL I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM MY CAT
* Life is hard and then you nap.
* Curiosity never killed anything except maybe a few hours
* Variety is the spice of life: One day ignore people, the next day annoy them and play with them when they're busy.
* When in doubt, cop an attitude.
* Climb your way to the top -- that's why the drapes are there.
* Never sleep alone when you can sleep on someone's face.
* Make your mark in the world -- or at least spray in each corner.
* When you go out into the world, always remember, being placed on a pedestal is a right, not a privilege.
* Always give generously; a bird or rodent left on the bed tells them, "I care."

A Cat's Guide to Human Beings
1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans?
So you've decided to get yourself a human being. In doing so, you've joined the millions of other cats who have acquired these strange and often frustrating creatures. There will be any number of times, during the course of your association with humans, when you will wonder why you have bothered to grace them with your presence.
What's so great about humans, anyway? Why not just hang around with other cats? Our greatest philosophers have struggled with this question for centuries, but the answer is actually rather simple:
They Have Opposable Thumbs
Which makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing television stations and other activities that we, despite our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves. True, chimps, orangutans and lemurs also have opposable thumbs, but they are nowhere as easy to train.
2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention
Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more important activities than taking care of your immediate needs, such as conducting business, spending time with their families or even sleeping.
Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this work to your advantage by pestering your human at the moment it is the busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will do whatever you want it to do, just to get you out of its hair. Not coincidentally, human teenagers follow this same practice.
Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human to do what you want:
Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper in front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is more important than you. They will often offer you a snack to lure you away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp product at every opportunity. This practice also works well with computer keyboards, remote controls, car keys and small children.
Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's "golden time" is between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning.
If you paw at your human's sleeping face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want. You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their attention; remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human from getting suspicious.
3. Punishing Your Human Being
Sometimes, despite your best training efforts, your human will stubbornly resist bending to your whim. In these extreme circumstances, you may have to punish your human. Obvious punishments, such as scratching furniture or eating household plants, are likely to backfire; the unsophisticated humans are likely to misinterpret the activities and then try to discipline YOU.
Instead, we offer these subtle but nonetheless effective alternatives:
Use the cat box during an important formal dinner.
Stare impassively at your human while it is attempting a romantic interlude.
Stand over an important piece of electronic equipment and feign a hairball attack.
After your human has watched a particularly disturbing horror film, stand by the hall closet and then slowly back away, hissing and yowling.
While your human is sleeping, lie on its face.
Rewarding Your Human: Should Your Gift Still Be Alive?
The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting humans with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled animal. Some believe that humans prefer these gifts already dead, while others maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring cricket or rodent just as much as we do, given their jumpy and playful movements in picking the creatures up after they've been presented.
After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend the following:cold blooded animals (large insects, frogs, lizards, garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should be presented dead, while warm blooded animals (birds, rodents, your neighbor's Pomeranian) are better still living. When you see the expression on your human's face, you'll know it's worth it.
5. How Long Should You Keep Your Human?
You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives. The other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching, though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are worth living with) are pretty much the same. But what do you expect? They're humans, after all.
Opposable thumbs will only take you so far.

LIFE LESSONS LEARNED FROM A DOG
1. If you stare at someone long enough, eventually you'll get what you want.
2. Don't go out without ID.
3. Be direct with people; let them know exactly how you feel by piddling on their shoes.
4. Be aware of when to hold your tongue, and when to use it.
5. Leave room in your schedule for a good nap.
6. Always give people a friendly greeting. A cold nose in the crotch is most effective.
7. When you do something wrong, always take responsibility (as soon as you're dragged shamefully out from under the bed).
8. If it's not wet and sloppy, it's not a real kiss.

RULES FOR DOGS
I will not eat the cats' food, before or after they eat it.
I will not burn rubber through the open car window and into the fast food restaurant, no matter how good it smells.
The computer's mouse is, unlike a real mouse, inedible.
I will stop trying to find the few remaining pieces of carpet in the house when I am about to throw up.
I will not throw up in the car.
I will drag my bottom along the grass to rid myself of hangers-on.
I will not steal used sanitary napkins from the bathroom garbage.
I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc.
I will not eat other animals' poop.
I will not lick my human's face after eating animal poop.
I will not roll my head around in other animals' poop.
"Kitty box crunchies" are not food.
I will not eat any more socks and then re-deposit them in the backyard after processing. The diaper pail is not a cookie jar.
I will not eat the disposable diapers, especially the dirty ones.
I will not wake Mommy up by sticking my cold, wet nose up her bottom end.
I will not chew my human's toothbrush and not tell them.
I will not chew crayons or pens, 'specially not the red ones, or my people will think I am haemorrhaging.
When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled down when it's raining outside.
I will not drop soggy tennis balls in the underwear of someone who is sitting on the toilet.
We do not have a doorbell. I will not bark each time I hear one on TV.
I will not steal my Mom's underwear and dance all over the back yard with it.
The sofa is not a face towel. Neither are Mom and Dad's laps.
My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
I will not bite the officer's hand when he reaches in for Mom's driver's license and car registration.
I will not play tug-o'-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
I do not need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm lying under the coffee table.
I will not roll my toys behind the fridge.
The garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff.
I must shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the house.

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International Baccalaureate
Hell's Outhouse
Colorado Springs	Colorado
village_idiot_66@hotmail.com

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Page Updated Sat Jun 3, 2000 2:12pm EDT