This may come as somewhat of a surprise to many of you given that I run a multi-billion dollar internet company that is constantly pushing the boundaries of what elves and a select group of retards call humor, but I really don't have that much day-to-day responsibility.  In fact, my position of power and instant access to wealth does the exact opposite of what it should, namely allowing me to coast through life with the ease of a homeless person who sleeps and drinks his lazy days away.  This purchasable freedom affords me the ability to not really care about anyone or anything; a position that took a number of years to secure.

You see, as with most posts of power, I was quite frequently entrusted with all manner of important duties and responsibilities and I quite frequently screwed every one of them up.  Trade secrets, gallons of milk, the cure for AIDS, and even small children were all put under my purview, largely because no one ever heard of a CEO that did anything dishonest, right?  Well, trade secrets can be sold for profit by those who hold them, similar to how small children can also be sold for profit, much to the dismay of those who claim ownership over them.  I looked at it as providing the little guy with a nice job in a Japanese factory but his parents had other ideas.  No wonder chivalry is dead; you try to do something nice and look what it gets you!

Imagine my surprise then when I was contracted last week by some friends who were going out of town to come over periodically and check in on some feline inventions of theirs.  (I believe that in some social circles, these things are called "cats" or "furry balls of boredom.")  It had been years since someone last asked me to do anything even remotely responsible so I wasn't about to let this opportunity pass me by.  I readily accepted, of course, but failed to mention the fact that I know absolutely nothing about cats.  However, since I am not one to panic, I spent at least three minutes on Google one day and decided to learn everything I could about these crazed critters.  (I also bought tickets to this show called "Cats" which I thought might help but I spent the day injecting horse tranquilizers into my tongue instead.)

It turns out that cats were invented in 1456 by a German noble who was trying to find a better way to clean the dust from his summer cottage.  Not being smart enough to invent robots or own slaves, he stole a small dog from one of the neighboring villages, shaved it, and then proceeded to superglue the facial hair from all of the bearded men in town onto his new invention in a way that he felt would best accumulate dust.  To his amazement -- he wasn't very bright -- his new creation worked wonders and he was rumored to have the cleanest house in the land.  After a number of unsuccessful attempts to reproduce his creation, generally by forcing it to mate with such objects as loaves of bread and the vegetation in his garden, he eventually kidnapped another dog, shaved it, and forcefully beat both of them with tree branches until they produced offspring.  Google wasn't clear on how this wound up eventually producing cats, but a good magician never reveals the secret to his tricks either.  So, in the spirit of sharing (unlike those shady magicians), I have compiled a list of things that I have learned during my tenure as catsitter.



Cats aren't any good at cooking.
Perhaps this is common knowledge to people who eat, sleep, and breathe cat but for a typical layperson like me, I can imagine that this would come as quite a shock.  I mean, why else would you populate your homestead with these creatures unless they were slaving over a hot stove all day and had a nice meal waiting for you when you came home?  Anyway, during a particularly harrowing bout of cat sitting, I began to feel myself grow hungry.  I put some soup on the stove and patiently waited for it to boil.  About midway through this thrilling process, I got a call from Lassie and had to go help Timmy out of a well.  I told the cat to watch over the soup and stir it occasionally.  Pretty simple, right?  Wrong.  Imagine the horror when I returned twice as hungry only to find my soup ruined and the stove on fire.  I asked the cat what happened but he steadfastly refused to do anything other than pace and rub my leg, so I scolded him by pouring the pot of boiling water on him.  Also, I later ordered a pizza and didn't share.

Cats don't puke as a sign of affection.
While I already stated that I don't know much about cats, I was an ornithologist for a number of years and I can say with absolute certainty that I know birds.  I can also state, again with absolute certainty, that after this week of sitting on cats, birds and cats are nothing alike.  You see, in the bird world, throwing up is a part of life, often necessary as that is how mothers feed their babies.  Originally, I thought that the cat, feeling guilty over his ruining of my meal the day before, was merely trying to feed me the only way he knew how, which is to say that he tried repeatedly to regurgitate in my mouth while batting my head about with his sharp claws.  I was wrong.  Not only did his throw up not taste good, which in turn made me throw up, it smelled like a mix of death and belly button lint; a smell which I have yet to get out of my pores.  I didn't take it personally; I'm pretty sure he was just upset about the Phoenix Suns not making it into the NBA finals.

Cats apparently aren't very good listeners.
Just as the house was entrusted to me with a set of rules (namely don't drink all of my beer and piss on the carpet), I likewise entrusted the house to the cats with a strict set of guidelines to follow while I was not there.  (One, of course, was don't drink all my beer and piss all over the place.)  Cats apparently aren't one for rules because not only did they proceed to drink all my beer and piss all over the place, they drank the owners beer as well, leaving a hastily scrawled note in remarkably good penmanship saying that I had done it.  But that wasn't even the half of it.  I explictly told them not to throw any parties while I was gone as they weren't old enough to purchase beer on their own and that their party would really suck if I wasn't there.  Did they listen to this sage advice?  No.  I came over during my lunch hour one afternoon to drop in and make a surprise visit.  (The beer and puke aside, the little things were growing on me.)  Do you remember that scene from House Party where Kid N' Play are dancing and everyone is going wild?  Yeah, imagine that but with cats.  (In case you didn't see that movie, think American Pie but with an urban flair.  And cats.)  It must have taken me over nine hours of cleaning to get the place back to a respectable state, not to mention the time involved in replacing everything that was broken and paying off the cops and neighbors to not report it.  *sigh*  Well, at least the owners won't find out, right?



Also, in addition to the major lessons that I learned above, I learned a number of smaller lessons that I feel would make this list incomplete if I didn't share with you.  Perhaps you will find these as invaluable as I did in learning to handle unruly cats.

DON'T: Reward cat for going in the litter box and not on the carpet.
DO: Reward cat for going outside or at a neighbor's house.

DON'T: Reward cat for not clawing at the furniture.
DO: Reward cat for clawing or mauling other unruly cats or neighborhood children.

DON'T: Reward cat with food everytime you come home from work.
DO: Reward cat with food everytime he comes home from the store with food for you.

DON'T: Reward cat by petting it when it has done nothing to deserve it.
DO: Reward cat by not kicking it when it manages to not piss you off.

All in all, I managed to survive my week with only minor scratches on my face and a lot of lessons learned.  Sure, we got off to a shaky start but I think that near the end, we may have actually started to bond.  Well, by bond I mean learned to successfully ignore each other.  I'm not sure when I am going to see the little balls of trouble again but knowing what I know now, I'll be prepared.