Max asks the teeming millions...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Max, the Cat. I live here, in Seattle with my two companions, Cassy and 'Lil. We’re served by our two barely competent servants.
I wouldn’t normally risk having my full complement of talents exposed, but I have a question.

I may have to break off suddenly, so please bear with me. If the staff ever found out what I’m actually capable of, I’d have more work than I do now. What, with making sure the bottoms of our food bowls never show, monitoring the birds and squirrels outside the window, (I’m working on a call, to lure them into the house, but it still needs work.) and making sure the bed remains soft, I barely have time for five good naps. If I have to go, I’ll be back when the coast is clear. (yumm, fish.)

Anyway, my food and massage [del]slave[/del], assistant, Mew, (I know, I know, but by the time I realized she was a female, she was used to the name.) does something that makes me crazy. I’d like to know why she does it and how I can make her stop.

See, we have several water dishes. There are three in the staff’s litter box room. One, they use instead of sand. I’m very curious about where that water goes, but the staff seems to think it might be dangerous. They prevent me from following it.
One of the water bowls is HUGE! It’s so big it has it’s own weather. It rains in there every day. Sometimes it floods. That’s where my question arises. When it floods to almost full, Mew takes off her fur and get in it! I sit on the edge to protect her. I try to dry her off, whenever I get a chance, but she keeps getting wet again. I’ve had to save her many times, because she slides down and her head goes under the water. I call her name, and sometimes stick a claw into her skin to bring her up. So far, I’ve managed to get her out every time.

So, why does she do this? It’s bad enough that Purrr, her mate, and my nap lap, stands in the rain everyday, but at least I don’t have to save him.

Can I stop her from doing this? I’m so afraid she’ll drown, and no one will fill my food dish.

Oh, here they come, gotta g

2

It’s grooming. Unfortunately, they lack the flexability to lick their own asses. I wouldn’t worry about it.

3

snicker

That is hilarious.

4

You can get a guest account, posting with your [DEL]slave[/DEL] staff’s account is frowned upon.

5

Somebody’s gotta new nickname in the MMP! :smiley: Too funny!

6

Max, the best bet is to wait until your servant closes her eyes in the water, then jump onto her head and hang on with all your claws. Trust me…you will never again see her submerge herself.

(Mainly because you will be banished to the basement for Life + 50, but no plan’s perfect.)

7

Max does Mew* also put stuff in the water dish that makes bubbles? If so, she is doing that for your amusement. See, when she’s in the water dish she can swish the bubbly stuff around which makes it fun to swat at. When she puts her head under the water, it should make the bubbly (sometimes foamy) stuff bigger so you can swat at it more. Mew is in no danger. She is doing this solely for your entertainment as a good [del]slave[/del] servant should.

*Somebody is so gonna regret this name. :smiley:

8

Ferret collective agrees - bubbly stuff is for playing and eating. The food-giving servants get in the big water dish to stir up the bubbles, and groom themselves as long as they’re in there. Mew probably thinks that she can make better bubbles that way.

9

As a matter of fact, she does! It doesn’t taste very good, though. It’s hard enough to dry her with my little tongue, at least she could taste good. :rolleyes: When I get the bubbles on my tail, I have to chase it to kill them properly. It’s all so exhausting, I need an extra nap.

Why would anyone regret the very acceptable name I’ve given my [del]pet[/del] assistant?

10

Ha! We cats are home alone today. So far, we’ve pulled stuff out of two cabinets, made a tent out of the hall carpet, chewed through the bottom of the cat food bag, and Cassy puked on the bed, from eating all that extra food. Time for a nap.
When they get home, we’ll all be asleep, so they’ll never believe that we could possibly be responsible for the carnage.
I think I’ll sleep in the nice hollow I made in the carpet. They’ll think I was trying to straighten it out, when I collapsed from exhaustion.
[sub]Hehehehehe.[/sub]

11

Max,have you tried their jacuzzi?

12

I know just what you mean!

My own personal entertainer and bedwarmer, Prrip-Meep, seems to have this unnatural modesty problem. I mean, I don’t have a problem stopping wherever I am if I deem personal grooming necessary. Better to be clean, I say, and proactive grooming is effective grooming. But when she takes off her fur (and isn’t THAT creepy) she gets all cranky if I open the door before she’s finished. Well? It was a closed door. I don’t like closed doors, and I have expressly repeated this preference to her numerous times. It’s not like I NEED something on the other side, but a closed door is a door that isn’t open.

This naturally extends to the times she goes to use the swooshy people litter box (SHE POOPS IN OUR WATER BOWL!!! :mad: ) in the little room. If she’s on her way there, I absolutely must get there before her to make sure it’s safe. What if there was a snake in there? Or a monster? Or a bug? Regardless, there’s one of those really big water bowls in there too. It’s mostly dry, which makes it GREAT for skateboarding moves, but occasionally – and especially in the morning – she’ll make it start flooding even after I jump in there! It’s not so bad when the water is pooling at one end, but it keeps creeping toward me until it touches my FEET. And then the rain starts, and that’s just the worst.

The most baffling thing is when it’s all flooded and I come up to sit on the edge and make sure she’s all right. She is covered in water and all; I really am very concerned. For no reason whatsoever, just when I lose track of it, my tail will suddenly be soaking wet! Perhaps this is because it has been trailing in the water dish. I’m not certain. It’s always surprising.

The worst, of course, is those mornings when the noisy thing doesn’t ring. They seem to come two at a time, but she’s ever so cross when the wretched thing doesn’t go off the rest of the time. So I make sure she wakes up by running across her legs over and over, jumping onto the bird-watching platform above, back down onto her other side, over her legs… She always kicks me off the bed when I do this, and I’m only trying to help!

Well, that’s enough for now. Off to get my butt licked by that other cat and take a nap in the sun.

13

Hey Max, I’m Gracie May. I live with my bipeds down in Kent. When I moved in many years ago, I discovered the bipeds keep a cup of water in the small water hole located in the room of big stink. There is another bowl of water in the room of plentiful vittles but a large black thing the bipeds call Bailey drinks from that. Some of the other felines in the house will drink from it but I won’t, I don’t want dog germs inside of me. As the princess of the house, I must maintain my decorum. I am also the only feline allowed in the room with my large sleeping cushion. I just wish the bipeds would quit throwing me out at night so they can sleep on my cushion. I better go, I just heard the bearded biped use the tall white litter bowl in the room of big stink and he doesn’t like me on his glowing letter box. I just wish he would put up more pictures of other felines, I really like the ones from that redhead named Morris.

14

Max, Moriarty here. I taught my slaves a trick that you might like. When the female one steps in the big water dish and makes the rain start, I find that very disconcerting.
Good thing I got her these two dangly fabric toys that hang down the side of the dish. I can now sit in between the fabric one and the clear one and keep a close eye on her while she is wet. If she looks to be in distress I can reach a claw underneath and get her feet to check on her. It’s good to be able to keep an eye on them when they play like this. Water is dangerous!

Maybe you can invest in a clear fabric toy too! It keeps you safely dry while you can watch your Mew in her dish.

15

Mew is a hilarious name for a female?

Sorry, I don’t get it. (Maybe it’s because I’m a dog person. I dunno.)

Anyway, would someone please enlighten me?

16

Moriarty, Yeah, we have that clear thingy in the big water dish, but I’m sure it’s going to drag me into the water. It did, that one time, when I was little. I’ve had something called a “bath” a couple times where Mew tried to drown me. I was very upset for a long time. I was still wet when I woke up from my nap! I’ve let her know she risks much if she tries it again. Anyway, I almost escaped before actually being dunked, but that clear thing confused me and then grabbed me and threw me back into the water. It was all very upsetting.

Gracie May, do you mean you don’t get to sleep in your own bed at night!? That’s terrible! I hope you let those bipeds know who’s boss!
Most nights all three of us sleep on the big cushions. We allow the help to sleep there too, especially when it’s cold. Sometimes, they take way too much room and we have to use a little gentle dicipline, like putting my nose in an ear, and purring as loud as I can. When I sleep on Mew’s head, I try to step on as much hair as possible.
Oh Oh! I think I hear one of them coming. Gotta go!

17

To a human, “mew” is a sound that is completely gender neutral. It’s a noise made by a cat. But, in picunurse’s cat Max’s world, and presumably the worlds of his cat buddies, “Mew” is obviously a boy’s name. Max gave picunurse the name before he realized she was a “she.” The opposite of a little kid who names his cat “Bubba” only to be surprised when “Bubba” has kittens. This secondary joke has been a sit-com (and who knows, maybe even vaudeville) staple forever. The humor of the whole thing lies in anthropomorhic absurdity. Of course all kitties know Mew is a boys name, but Max relaized picunurse was a girl too late and the name stuck, like momma Bubba. I chuckled. It’s clever.

Now, after having completely sterilized the joke, I need to go wash the lame off.

18

Best. Thread. Ever. :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

wait till i show it to all my [del]cats[/del] feline overlords.

19

If this humble servant may be permitted to ask a question…

Why do you sleep inside the engine compartments of cars? Don’t you know it’s dangerous? We lost our dearly-beloved JP that way.

20

Hi, Sunspace, it’s Denver here. (Hi, Max!)

It’s not so much that we like engine compartments of cars–it’s that they tend to be warm. We like warm places–my friend Hope loves to stretch out over the air vent when it blows warm air, and my friend Shiloh likes to curl up in the sunshine streaming in the window. Warm places are good for catnaps.

Unfortunately, not all places that are warm and private are safe. The dryer, for one. I’m told that car engine compartments are another, but since my humans don’t let any of us outside, I have no direct experience with them. But I do know that engines get warm, and in winter, there don’t seem to be many warm places a cat can go to have a nap if it is outside. If a car engine is warm and a cat is looking for a place to sleep, well…

My humans always look in the dryer first before they use it, just to make sure none of us are in there. I think they should also open the car hood and check before they use that too, just to make sure no cats are in there. But I don’t think they will. Anyway, hope this helps.