Cleopatra J. Cat - Cleopatras Confessions: A Feline Guide to Coping with Dogs, Humans, and Other Pointless Interruptions to a Good Nap

Copyright 2014 by Larry Arnstein, Zack Arnstein, and Joey Arnstein

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover image by Thinkstock

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-708-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-905-9

Printed in China

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

I have occasionally been asked what the J stands for in Cleopatra J. Cat. Its a family name, from my mothers side, and it stands for Jarawandarla, which translated from the Siamese means: none of your darn business.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

W elcome kittens around the world! It is with great pleasure, and also a certain amount of sleepy indifference, that I begin the lofty endeavor of sharing my vast knowledge of cat life with you. In this book, it will be my mission to teach you all of the shortcuts, life lessons, and wisdom I have learned over the years, so that you can be better kittens, and one day, maybe even great cats. This will not be an easy task, especially since the mental effort involved will require me to take even more frequent and longer naps than usual. But, it is my mission all the same.

Despite being proudly antisocial creatures, we cats do end up sharing our space with other animals, frequently humans and dogs, so I think its best to start with them. Humans have a purpose in this world: providing high quality cat food, both wet and dry; also the Minimum Daily Cat Requirement of petting, (no less than two hours); and most important, making available a good Sleep Environment for a cat. This must include comfortable chairs, couches, beds, countertops, and a variety of floor surfaces: bare wood, a cool cement area, linoleum, and carpeting. Carpeting is required not only as an Essential Sleep Option, but also for puking on. Never puke on anything not covered by carpeting.

Dogs, on the other hand, serve no useful purpose. All they do is disturb and disrupt, specifically disturb and disrupt cat sleeping activity. Fortunately, dogs can be trained. Its a nuisance, but it can be done.

Ideally, there would be no dogs, or they would be confined to an island somewhere in the South Pacific, where they could bark and run around to their hearts content. But we dont live in an ideal world; we live in a world with dogs.

This book contains detailed tips on training your dog, but for starters, know that a couple of quick scratches to your dogs snout will have a very positive effect. Almost immediately, your dog will begin to approach you more calmly and cautiously.

I will leave details for upcoming chapters. For now, all you need to understand is that with proper training, both dogs and humans can rearrange their lives in ways which support you and your most important activity: sleeping.

Chapter 1

BASIC SLEEPING

I n this introductory chapter we will only be discussing the most elementary techniques. You must walk, my kittens, before you can fly.

This cat is demonstrating a fundamental technique. Some might describe it as Heavy Napping, but I think its simply Intense Regular Napping.

In your Intense Regular Nap you may opt for a Favorite Nap Location, but then youre limited by it. Suppose some careless human has put something down in your Favorite Nap Location? Then what? My advice is: Be flexible. This cat has clearly flopped down on a Location of Opportunity, and is enjoying an Intense Regular.

Our next cat is demonstrating the Plain, or Uncomplicated Nap.

This is sometimes referred to as the No Frills Nap. Note the paw placement: high, chin level, near the whiskers.

Here is another Basic Napping Position:

We call this the Relaxed Afternoon. It appears that this cat is not alert, but she is quite capable of quickly and suddenly ripping her claw across the face of an intruder, any species at all. So be warned. Any cat should be able to throw a Relaxed Afternoon at any time of the day or night.

Hazards in the Way of Your Peaceful Naptime

A few unpleasant things to watch out fornot major threats, just nuisances to be aware of:

1. VacuumsThis horrible human invention does nothing special except make a lot of noise. Obsessive humans dont realize that any time you clean the floor, it just gets dirty again, so they spend a huge portion of their lives trying to present an ideal perfect floor with no natural elements. And because they are too lazy to clean anything themselves, they invent loud, obnoxious machines to do it for them. If you come across one of these beastly things (and you will), just try not to completely freak out. Get as far away from it as possible, but it wont do you any harm. Trust me, I have seen them all: the big bulky ones, the little dust busters, these new ones that drive themselves around the floorIve been to battle with each and every one, and in the end, all that happens is I lose sleep. So, lose sleep you will, but thats about all.

2. Toddler humansThese are nasty creatures, apt to pull and yank at any part of your body they can get a hold of. The babies are alrightthey cant do much harmbut the toddlers are really sociopathic. They get pleasure in their size advantage and will make tormenting you as you nap one of their top priorities. The good thing is, they dont really know their own strength and are really just big scared oafs. Give em just a quick little warning bite, and they will go running to mommy. OOOOOO, Im so scared, the cat bit me!!! Mommy!!! Its pathetic.

3. Slightly older childrenThe problem here is that they can and will pick you up. Observe:

This insolence will not be forgotten. You will pay for it someday, human, when you least expect it.

4. ListsLists are things that humans make, not cats, so in honor of this, I will not continue to work on this list anymore, and will instead take just a lil nap.

Okay, Im back, did you miss me? That was refreshingnow, where were we? Rightnuisances. Lets talk about something related but slightly differentplaces we can get stuck! Yes, you will want to be very vigilant about climbing into, or attempting to nap in certain places in the house because, all of a sudden, these places can get closed off, and you can be there for a long time.