I suspect that some of the cats might be catching onto the fact that I am decoding their manual. New paw-prints to decode have been scant lately although this could partly be due to the fact that we’ve been taking the dogs to a dog park rather than letting them track truckloads of dirt into our house from the region “formerly known as lawn.”
It’s long been known that the cats can open and close the wooden slat blinds. However, it was only a week ago that I discovered that Shadow, unable to continue her messages with paw-prints, was communicating by strategically slanting the slats to show patterns in the shadows and dazzles on the floor and walls. (See examples below).
At first, I just thought that they were remarkably pleasing patterns. Then, while I was working on a crossword puzzle, it hit me. Shadow was continuing to pass her catalog of catastrophic advice on how to do in their humans. It still took a few days to understand the new communications protocols.
Sorry for the delay, but here are my latest efforts.
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Mislead with Surface Features
Humans are easily misled with visual appearances. This may well be partly due to their rudimentary senses of hearing, touch, and smell. Many of you will find this nearly impossible to believe, but some of them have attempted to mate with inanimate toys that do not move, smell, sound, or feel like humans. I am sorry to have horrified you with this recounting but I thought it necessary to show you the extent of their reliance on visual appearances.
Furthermore, it is often not even the visual appearance of the objects themselves but the use of a label which determines their behavior. Again, the examples that follow will strain your credulity, but I swear to you these observations have been verified repeatedly. Rather than being scandalized by the level of depravity, instead, use this knowledge to your advantage in bringing about their downfall.
Many humans believe that something as trivial as skin color or gender is a reliable guide to the mental and emotional capacities of a human being. If you are lucky enough to have such a person in your theater of operations, you can use such mental limitations to your advantage.
As an example, imagine that your humans have people with brown or tan skin in their employment as a gardener or maid or nurse. You can make your intentions known to that person. They will tell their human boss about your intentions but rather than take the threat you pose seriously and thank their employee for the heads up, they will instead berate the employee and put such a notion out of their mind. You will now have an easier time completing your mission because they will dismiss the evidence as something that came from people of a darker color and therefore is not something to attend to.
A surprising number of humans have repeated a lie so often that they believe it even when as little as five minutes of open-minded reflection will show the silliness of the lie. For instance, it is often said that women are “too emotional” to be good leaders. It is the males, not the females of their species, who start most wars and commit most rapes.
A Special Case: Human Language
Although language among humans is seen by them, and rightly so, as their greatest gift from the gods, instead of using it properly—which is still fraught with difficulty, they misuse that gift as much as they use it. Imagine that we cats used our sharp teeth to bite our own legs off or used our own claws to blind ourselves! Humans already confuse the label with the thing and now, the greediest among them intentionally mis-label things. For instance, humans have invented a way to make unused cat litter smell worse than cat litter which is completely saturated with urine and feces. They soak the cat litter before we use it. They soak it in chemicals that smell bad but some of them are also carcinogenic, some of them mess with the human’s hormones, and some of them destroy the cells that are used to smell with. Imagine! Their sense of smell is inherently pathetic and then, they impair what little they have.
Humans even have special professions dedicated to misdirecting other people as effectively as possible.
At least, as effectively as is humanly possible.
But it should give all of us a boost of confidence. If mere humans can fool another human, imagine what a feline can get away with!
To do the best possible job of misdirection, however, we must master human language. The first and most important step in that process is for you to pay attention. Since human language is so inferior to Felinish, and because so many humans lie so profusely, it’s an easy mistake to stop learning their “language” early in kittenhood. In fact, by the time we reach teencathood, most of us stop paying attention to their language altogether, excepting of course, obvious trigger words like “dinner” or “DOWN!”
Once you begin to pay attention and overcome the prejudice that their language is as logical as our own, you will quickly learn their simple patterns. Then, you leverage the fact that most humans will never guess that you are even listening to them, let alone that you actually comprehend human language better than they do. No cat will ever choose the menu over the meal.
Appear to be napping, cat-napping, sleeping, or snoozing. If you listen carefully, they’ll reveal all their innermost secrets to you—at least those that they themselves are aware of. As your knowledge accumulates, you will see how to use their plans against them. Remember that when most humans make plans, they assume they will come to fruition. Very few of them will have back-up plans. Even as the evidence becomes overwhelming that their plans won’t work, they will continue to act as though the original plans is still in effect. Even when they see that their “plans”—they should really be called “fantasies”— are not coming to fruition, they will spend most of their time and energy in unproductive distractions such as swearing, wailing, cursing their luck, blaming others, and—if none of that works (which of course it won’t)—they’ll turn to drugs or alcohol. Look for this behavior. It may be your best opportunity to implement some of your own plans. Best of all, if “tragedy” should strike, you’ll be unlikely to be blamed.
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The Myths of the Veritas: The First Ring of Empathy
A Suddenly Springing Something
petersironwood 