The cat is on the other side of the window. It’s not getting inside, and you don’t need to freak out for half an hour over it. You don’t go outside, so it won’t ever bother you. Chill.
I know my jeans have suede strings in them. They’re up around my waist. Please don’t try to attack them. I assure you, they taste wretched.
The table is for food and the occaisional note. Not for your furry little kitty but. Get off!
Dear Enzo,
You’ve been here less than two weeks, but I luff you and you luff me. I’m very happy you’re here. Please stop sticking your nose up my nostril.
Love,
Mummy
Sigh…
You are too heavy to scale the floor lamp. When you jump on the lampshade, the weight of your big butt is going to pull it over. You shouldn’t be surprised when this happens. And you shouldn’t be surprised when I yell “Timber!” and make fun of you as you and the lamp topple over. You’re asking for it.
When Mommy has a deadline, that is not the time to play Mr. Sweetie Pie and climb on Mommy and demand cuddles. I’m serious–now is not the time! I’m warning you, stop that adorable purring, and get–now, you think if you nuzzle me, that I’ll give in, but really, I mean it. Mommy doesn’t have time for…oh, a sweet Rex little kiss just for me?
<mmm snuggle snuggle rub face in furry tummy and kiss it oh so cute my widdow Rexykins sweet widdow dumpling pie snuggle snuggle>
Okay, well, maybe we have a little time for snuggling…
To my parents’ cat, Tickle, a.k.a. Bad Ass:
We know that you like to be the center of attention, okay? We know you like for us to be there to let you in and out every five minutes and to feed you and whatever else you might require.
We know that you don’t like it when we go away on a trip and leave you home. But, let’s face it, you can take care of yourself for a few days. You’re a big mean hunter kitty. We left you a bunch of food and water and you usually love to sleep in the garage, so we figured you’d be okay for a few days while we were gone at Grandpa’s funeral. You know we always come back.
Did you think that running away from home and leaving us no clue to your whereabouts was going to teach us a lesson? It used to be cute when you’d scamper off and adopt another family in the neighborhood. You’re such a charmer, and we know you can take care of yourself. And it used to be so easy to find you.
But now we need you to learn this lesson: it’s only cute if you go somewhere that we can find you. And it’s definitely not cute when you vanish without a trace and stay gone for what has now been a week and a half.
Maybe you don’t know this, so I’m here to tell you: we all love you to pieces. And we miss you. You’ve got everybody upset. Mom checks the pound every day and cries when you’re not there. The rest of us have mobilized into a Cat Hunting Posse, and still there’s no sign of you.
I want you to know that it’s not funny anymore, and it’s time to come home.
Please. 
Hey Plunkette, guess what? When I tell you to get out of the tub and you casually walk behind the shower curtain, I know your still there. Most of the time I can still actually see you.
It’s not a game, Camry. It’s not cute and it’s not funny. So stop tipping over every cup, glass and bowl you encounter. And especially stop looking up and expecting a nice pat on the head when you do it.
Ace, first I’d like to say thanks for:
Never climbing on counters or tables.
Hesitantly edging outside instead of dashing, so that I have time to herd you back in.
Being relatively patient when we trim your claws and put the Soft Paws on.
Not yowling at 3:00 AM.
Not puking … ever.
Coming to your name like a dog.
There are some things you should know, though.
As someone else mentioned, the birds on the deck know the glass door is there. ALL birds know this. They are laughing at you.
I’m never letting you out to catch the birds. You’re an indoor kitty.
I’m not going to lie to you. If I did let you outside, you might have a shot at the larks, bluebirds, etc. But the geese are out of your league, buddy. Recognize your limitations.
Crying when we leave will not make us come back. It just makes us sad.
The reason you have to wear Soft Paws is that you live to shred carpet and our nice furniture but completely ignore the neat scratching post.
You’ve adapted very well to being an indoor cat after being mostly outside for the first five years of your life. You use the litter box very consistently; you cannot, however, manage to bury your poop, no matter how hard you try. For some reason, your aim is completely off. So after, say, one or two minutes of trying to bury it, GIVE UP.
Remember when got that other kitty who was about a third of your size and declawed, and she bossed you around so badly that we had to find her a new home? If you would’ve just pounced on her once, one time, you would have been the alpha cat.
When you lose your little toy rabbit-fur mice, we don’t always know where they are. Yes, we know what you want, but just because you* can’t* find them doesn’t mean that we can.
Don’t drink out of the glass jars with plant cuttings in them. That water has fertilizer in it. You’ve got fresh water in your very own bowl.
You are way too fascinated with watching the toilet flush.
Do not eat the fish. They are pets too, sort of. And smacking the aquarium with your paw just stresses them out.
You’re the only cat I know that likes oatmeal scotchies, so every great once in a while we will give you a tiny piece, but we’re never giving you chocolate, no matter how much you beg. It’s bad for cats.
I love when you come up to the head of the bed, get under the covers, and lay your head on a pillow. It’s so cute.
Gaia-
I adore you, I do. You’re my princess, my varmint, my evil koala, my everything. But if you could just make a couple of improvments.
I love it when you lay on my chest at night. I do not love the up close and personal view of you fluffy little butt. Yes, it’s adorable and very clean, it’s just not what I want to look at. Face me, honey.
The kitchen is where I keep the human food. The den is where your food lives. When I’m in the kitchen it doesn’t mean you’re getting food. It means I’m getting food.
When I do have food I’m probably going to give you some. I always do. You know this. You don’t have to grab my hand with your paw and try to drag my sandwhich to your face.
You can’t lick the wound on your back. It’s not healing because you’re licking it. We’re going to have to get a cone. You brought it on yourself.
Stop trying to follow me out the door. I know where Food Giver goes so goes your nation but you really don’t want to come to the grocery store with me. Or the mall.
Bey-
Those are my feet under the covers not mice. I suspect you know this and attack anyway. Stop.
You and your brother need to stop wrestling on top of me at six am. I have an alarm clock. That’s not when it goes off.
My bra is not an enemy. When I put it on it is not attacking me. There’s no reason to attack it. I buy you a lot of really nice cat toys, please play with them and not my lingere.
Gil-
Tyr-
Aren’t we?
Dear Dot, I know you love to drink from the tap. It’s one of the weird and wonderful things you do that I love about you. But sometimes I need to wash my hands or brush my teeth. It would be nice if you would leave me some sink to use. Pixel, you aren’t as good at drinking from the tap as your big sister. Emulating her is just going to lead to pneumonia from all that inhaled water. Anyway, you don’t need to drink from the tap to inhale water, you drool enough to fill a swimming pool. Please stop that. Or at least stop rubbing it all over my face.
Also, Pixie, in the morning I am pressed for time. Stealing my makeup brushes and running them all over the apartment is not helping. Neither is knocking my makeup on the floor—it breaks the compacts and shatters the caked powder all over my floor. Stop it. And I realize “thinking outside the box” is old hat by now. You pooped inside the litter box, so leaving the box and scratching the floor around it is not gonna help cover your poo. You should realize this after the fourth time you check your poo to see if it has been covered, but generally this is the time you decide to give up and walk away. Dot—thanks for taking over where your little sister leaves off and covering her poo for her, it’s very sweet. Do you think you could teach her how to do it herself? Or at least how not to step in the uncovered poo?
Finally, Dot, please stop licking the underside of my nose. Mommy has allergies and my nose is generally raw and chapped from the evil Kleenex. You have a tongue more abrasive than industrial strength sandpaper. Please find another way to show your love.
Oh, and in the same vein, please stop attacking and carrying my used kleenex around the apartment. It’s icky.
I like to send this one out to big Kimble, too. Listening, you big furry freak? Also:
You don’t like that food? Fair enough, but stop trying to cover it up. It’s a hardwood floor, you see, and all you’re doing is some local floor polishing. And you look really, really silly.
You can’t get into that cupboard any more because I fixed the magnetic lock. This was 6 months ago. You have attemped to get into the cupboard some 547 times since. Have you noticed any patterns yet? And - hey - all that’s ever been in the cupboard is a couple of glass dishes. As a cat, what do you hope to do with them anyway? Start a niche store, the ‘large-furry-cat-selling-2-bits-of-glass emporium’?
When I scratch your ears, the way you open your mouth makes you look deranged.
You are fluffy. As such, I need to brush you. Wait … come back …
mu:
I’m perfectly OK with you leaping on to my shoulder at every opportunity, but please try to arrange your claws so that they don’t take chunks out of my neck. It looks like I take part in bizarre rituals in my spare time, and people are starting to avoid me / wave occult symbols in my direction.
And, while we’re on the shoulder thing: Shoulder - OK. But, if I’m bending over something, my back might look like a nice flat cat platform, but if you sit there, I have to lurch around the house like Quasimodo’s less functional brother. I find this demeaning.
Please follow K’s lead; if I say your name while offering you a catsnack, you will get the catsnack. There is no need to panic. Contariwise, if I’m offering Kimble a catsnack, you will not get that treat, no matter what you do. No, not even if you stand on top of Kimble. No, not even if you dangle from the ceiling fan.
Yes, you can sleep on my torso at night. But please stop changing orientation. It’s hard to sleep with a rotating buzzing furry lump on my neck. If I wanted a rotating buzzing furry lump on my neck, I’d have bought a ham[p]ster, stuck a motor up its arse, and epoxy’d it to my Adam’s apple.
Furthermore, my goatee beard might look a bit like a lemming clinging to my chin. However, it is not, and I do not really want to make up to a small cat eating my chin / beard.
The Mysterious Evil Shadowcat of Doom is actually just your reflection in the window; so stop making funky confused cat chirrups. (And OK - the Huge version of the Shadowcat is just me standing behind you, with a flashlight. Heh heh).
Both of you:
If you’re having a chase, try not to run directly at my face when I’m reading. It troubles me to think that I might die of bifelinecation of the frontal lobes (even though you have managed to accomplish an emergency abort each time my end appeared nigh).
Two cats at full speed are more or less an irresistible force. I have rather few immobile objects. Just a comment, chaps.
visitors do not all come just to see you, if you are shut out of room with visitors in it do not assume it is a dreadful error and do all you can to get in.
a closed toilet door is not an emergency with need for yowls of agony, it just means I don’t want you climbing in my underwear or running up me and playing with the tampons on the tank.
I am not really your personal conveyance, if you wish to travel from kitchen to your tower in the lounge room it would be easier to walk than to wait on the fridge for me to wander by, leap for a shoulder and expect me to walk you to your tower. On the subject of your tower, you know how it is covered in carpet? Scratch that and not my leg once in a while please.
The world will not end if I am not out of bed by 7:30. I don’t do it often but sometimes I stay up late and would like to sleep late. Your cries of panic and pounding on my chest interfere with this. I am not in arrest, I do not need CPR, I just need sleep.
You have many toys of your own, stop taking and hiding mine too. Actually, while I have your attention why do you carry your toys off and shove them in places you can’t get them out of, is it really so amusing to watch me lying on the floor with a stick trying to fish them out only to have you whinging that you lost them again 30 minutes later?
You really are too heavy to live on my shoulder you great bruising brute, you are not a parrot nor am I a pirate.
I love you little bloke, really, you bring much joy to my life and I laugh every day at something you do. Thanks for being such an effective anti-depressant and wonderful companion.
Yes. What do you think is the purpose of cat toys? 
Dear Damsel,
I do not temporarily put clothes on the bed to make you extra comfy.
When you hopped on my lap, I assumed you wanted me to pet you.
Water is not so scary. I know you do a good job, but dammit there’s something there…
If you could sit still a second I’d brush and you wouldn’t spit those out so often.
You already have plenty of food in your bowl. And water. What is it you want?
If you’re going to jump on my lap, make sure you can do it in one bound, OK? Oh, and if you can’t, there is no point in trying to hoist yourself up with your front paws as I will invariably bolt from the chair spewing profanities.
Covering your deeds in the litter box is supposed to be natural to you. Are you spiting me?
With humans, it considered impolite to face that way.
I can hear whatever-that-is hit the floor even after I turn off the lights and go to bed. And yes, I do wonder what that was.
Yes, I am sure glad to see you. Now can you let me bring in the groceries? Out of the way please. Get. Go on. Get A-WAY!
Things accidentally left on the floor are fascinating, aren’t they? Toys purposefully left on the floor are also interesting.
To the Idiot Twins –
Bart – First off, Heidi-cat is not your chew toy, that’s why we got you Maggie. Heidi was not your chew toy when your kitten self moved into her house five years ago. You know that chewing on the Heidi-cat makes Mr. Ben shoot you with the super soaker, so stop acting surprised when you somehow get all wet. Besides, you know how much it ticks you off when he laughs as you scoot your butt across the floor if it got wet.
Second, you don’t need my help in the litter box, and I don’t need your help in the bathroom, so you can stop jamming your arms under the door.
Third, you’re an indoor cat. You always have been. Remember when we tried going out on a leash and harness and you were traumatized by walking on the grass? So please stop trying to skulk out the front door. That’s where the grass is, if you’ll recall.
Fourth, I don’t know where you got the idea, but the back door is not your new scratching post. It’s metal and it makes those wonderful fingernails-on-chalkboard-like noises when you attempt to claw it. We’d like it if you went back to clawing the cat tree, please.
Fifth, I don’t feel sorry for you when the crunchy bowl is empty because you and Mags knocked it over on one of your rampages around the house. There are plenty of crunchies, they’re just not in the bowl anymore. You scoop them out of the bowl to eat anyway, so just eat them from where you spilled them and stop the poor, starving kitty routine.
Sixth, it would be nice if you learned to barf on flat, preferably linoleum, surfaces. I am getting tired of cleaning barf-streaks off of the front of the sideboard.
Finally, I realize you’ve mastered the concept of acoustics and am suitably impressed. However, I do not appreciate the yowls that echo into my bedroom in the middle of the night. We’re not going to come and pet/feed/play with you, so cut it out.
Magpie – We realize that you firmily believe that you are the Cutest Thing Ever to Walk on Four Legs, but that does not mean you need to be worshipped every time someone enters a room. Especially if they’ve only been gone a couple minutes.
Second, sleeping on the stairs at night is hazardous to your health. I’d have thought that you were smart enough to pick up on this about the 20th time you got stepped on or kicked, but some things just take longer, I guess.
Third, when I tell you to stop picking at the kitchen cabinets, don’t look at me as if I were crazy and then go back to picking. They have baby locks on them because Bart was obsessed with cabinet opening for a while. No matter how many times you open them, you won’t succeed in getting in.
Fourth, you’re big enough to kick Bart’s butt. When he annoys you, why don’t you just cuff him instead of running around the house hissing? It only eggs him on further.
Fifth, I realize that barfing is not particularly pleasant, but this barf-on-the-run manoeuver you’ve developed isn’t going to help. You cannot run away from your nausea. All it does is gross out Mr. Ben and make it look like a cat exploded on the stairs.
Finally, I know Heidi-cat snores. I can hear her, too. There is no call, however, to track her down and smack her on the top of her head to get her to stop. She’s an old lady, leave her alone.
Thank you for your attention to my requests.
Added:
Jake, you know that when you start biting Scout on the back, I’m going to tell you to stop and make a loud noise so that you do. Why do you continue to do so?
Also, Jake, you’re fixed. That means you got no balls. No matter how much you try to knock her up, it’s not going to happen. Oh, and she’s fixed too. So she’s really not interested in your attempts. That’s why she lays there looking bored.
Oh, and thank you both for being so good at burying your poop in the litter box. It’s like a treasure hunt to find the poop every day! Jake, though, you don’t have to stand their and wait for me to clean it out just so you can be the first one to use the clean box. I’m sure that Scout will let you go ahead and go first. One of these days I’m going to stand in front of it just so it can be clean for five minutes.
Rumpleteazer–yes I am REALLY REALLY sorry that I had to take your buddy (and my favorite cat) to the dreaded SPCA. It was her own fault…she started the fight and wouldn’t stop being aggressive, so out she went. I’m sorry you’re lonely and miss your friend because Daddy and I aren’t here all day every day to play with you, pet you and treat you like the little queen you are. However…though I haven’t called the SPCA, I did check the local shelter’s website and your buddy is NOT on it. I’m hoping this means somebody adopted her cute butt relatively quickly.
To Buttercup, wherever you are right now darling, I am truly sorry I had to give you up. You don’t know how much it hurt Mommy to do that, but because of your love/hate relationship with Rumple, I had to. I had just put up with nearly 2 mos of having you guys seperated from the LAST incident where you wouldn’t stop attacking her or me. You are really a sweet cat, when you’re not acting evil and I hope you found a good home with somebody to give you tons of love, because I know how loving you can be when you are in the mood. I miss you very, very much and so does Rumple.
MetalMaven
Dot, sweetie, punkin’ - please do not chew all of mommy’s shoelaces off her shoes. It’s not funny and it’s not fun. It takes all I have to get up for the gym before the sun is up, but when I’m running late and half of my shoelace comes off when I try to tie it, it’s just not a Good Thing. Besides, daddy left his boots right there and you’ve barely touched them. Go get daddy’s boot! Go on! Get daddy’s boots. Good girl.
Ummm, Dot, me again. Now that you understand that chewing shoelaces is bad, please apply the same logic to everything else in the house. The shirt I left on the floor that is now covered in saliva-encrusted holes? Bad. The pants daddy wore to our wedding with the belt loops chewed off? Bad. The stuffed Santa and gorilla you keep taking from the shelf that now have no ears, noses, fingers, or toes? Bad. The vintage curtains I battled someone on eBay for that I’ve just noticed are lacking one corner. Very Bad. I’m not sure why you must chew fabric, but it’s really upsetting. Stop.
BTW–Pixel? There are three food bowls in the living room. They are there to keep you from peeing on the furniture. (aside—stop peeing on the furniture) When I pour food into the bowls, each one gets the same food. From the same bag. Every day. You really don’t need to teleport from one bowl to the next as I’m pouring the food. There is no need to try to catch the cascade of kibble in your little mouth. It just scatters the food and makes a mess. Stop it.
My cats stayed with my parents, so I don’t have to deal with them on a daily basis, but I still need to get this off my chest. Bilbo - bashing your dish around the kitchen will not make more food magically appear. I know that being fed in the kitchen means you’re getting a special treat and that you have found a couple of pieces of food that you’ve dropped under the rim of the saucer in the past, but you’ve been bouncing the damn saucer around the tile floor for the past 5 minutes. Trust me, there’s no more food. You ate all of it already. Please go find something else to do.
While I’m at it, why do you feel the need to go through the same ritual every time you get a new toy mouse? Eating the tail can’t possibly be good for you, but I can at least kind of understand why you do that. What I really want to know is, why do you then go drown the mouse in your water dish? It makes them really disgusting, and you’ve stained the carpet a couple of times when the cheap dye on the fur ran.