How to torment your cat
1) TIP THE KITTY (Cat-Tipping)
Cat-Tipping is quite similar to Cow Tipping, i.e. the art of finding a cow that is asleep standing up and then tipping it over by shoving it from one side. With Cat-Tipping, the cat does not actually have to be asleep standing up. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a cat that sleeps standing up. There are actually a couple of methods to this. Firstly, you can simply try to push over a cat that is standing up. This one is kind of tricky because cats have devilishly good balance and can compensate for any directional force of sufficient weakness. However, if you push them quickly, when they aren't expecting it, they will usually fall over. Another method, probably my favorite, is to wait until your cat bends over forward to lick its butt and then tip it. In the butt-licking position your cat will be incredibly unbalanced due to its back being hunched and all of its legs splayed out forward or in the air. All you have to do then is push it in the direction with the least amount of legs and it will topple nicely. This really cheeses most cats off, cause they really like to lick their butts and hate to be interrupted. However, cats will usually not show any ire toward you for tipping them over. They would rather pretend that they meant to fall over in the first place and had been planning to do so for the past seven months. Rest assured, though, they're actually pissed at you and may begin seeking ways to piss on you. A final method of cat-tipping is the "spike tip." The spike tip is similar in preparation to the butt-lick tip, but differs in the actual execution. You wait for your cat to start licking its butt then you walk up behind it and, with both hands, grip your cat firmly by its sides, trapping it in the butt-licking position. Then, at your leisure, forcibly tip it onto its back. This has much the same emotional appeal as spiking a football after a touchdown, hence the spike portion of the name. Most cats, after being forcibly spike-tipped, will be unable to contain their hatred for you and will glare with shock and amazement that you had the audacity to interrupt their butt-licking with such an act. The expression on their face is well worth and wounds you may receive.
2) KITTY BUTT BONGO
Inspired by Howard Stern's "Butt Bongo Fiesta," where Howard plays the bare butts of scantily clad women as though they were bongo-drums. Kitty Butt Bongo involves finding an unsuspecting kitty lying on its side with its butt exposed. Then you sneak up on it and, using both hands, play the cat's butt as a makeshift bongo drum. It is helpful if you have rhythmic background music, such as Vinx, Stomp, Rusted Root, Tito Puente, or the theme from Miami Vice. You don't have to have any background music though. Also important to this ritual, you must sing the words "Kitty Butt Bongo" repeatedly whilst bongoing. Thick gloves may be necessary to play this with less-patient, non-de-clawed cats. Much fun is produced. (SEE: Kitty Fanny and Paddle the Kitty.)
3) THE KITTAPULT
This trick requires that you own a big cushy recliner rocking chair, preferably of the slick leather varieties. (A Pleather recliner is an acceptable substitution.) Cats often like to sleep on the top of the chair-backs of big cushy reclining rocking chairs. If you are careful, you can catch one in the act of sleeping in this manner. In such a case, stand behind the chair, gripping the sides of the chair-back. Then slowly begin to pull it back toward you. Cats don't like to have to move around a lot once they get settled. Makes em agitated. So if you pull the chair back slowly enough, the cat won't jump off and run away but will simply adjust its position on the chair back so that it stays upright. It may, thus, take you several minutes to pull the chair back a sufficient launch distance. When you have finally done so, release the chair-back. One of two things will happen: A) The cat will be launched airborne and will sail across the room, thus achieving a catapult effect; or B) The cat will roll off the back of the chair, land on your foot and claw it viciously. Either way, you've managed to torment your cat and had fun doing it, though not without some risk of personal injury.
4) KITTY BOWLING
The sport of bowling traditionally involves a bowler rolling a bowling ball at high speeds down a slick wooden bowling lane toward a set of bowling pins in an effort to knock a majority of them over. Kitty bowling is similar but with far fewer rules and more executable methods. In one version, you substitute your cat for the bowling pins, using a large spherical object—such as a big ball of yarn, a bowling ball, etc—which you roll across the floor in an effort to knock your cat over. This method can be used on carpet provided that you "ball" is light enough that its momentum won't be completely slowed by the carpet's surface. This method can be challenging, for you must either find an unsuspecting cat to bowl over or have really good aim. Remember, a cat aware of your intentions will rarely remain a sitting target. A second method is to substitute the cat for the ball, sliding the cat itself across a smooth surface. This method does require having a low-friction floor, such as marble, tile or hard wood, as well as a low-traction cat, such as mine. The ultimate in cat bowling would be to combine these two methods, sliding one cat across a slick surface to knock over another cat, but no one has yet been able to achieve success.
5) MOCK THE KITTY
A popular game for cat owners that requires little effort to play. You simply wait for your cat to start whining about something, (i.e., when it's awake,) and the you mock it by repeating its meow in an exaggerated tone. Example: Your cat says "Meow." A possible mocking response would be: "Oh, Meyooowwwww! I'm soooo pitiful. Pity me! I'm a poor little kitty who likes to whiiiine! Ohhh meyooooowwww!" Cats generally don't know how to deal with this other than by continuing to whine, giving you more opportunity to mock it. In most cases it will eventually give up and go away, or give up and go piss on your stuff. If you want to mock your cat but are having difficulty finding it, go to the kitchen and open a can of something. When opening a can of something, no matter what is actually in the can, all cats assume two things: A) It's a can of tuna; and B) It's for them. And all cats instinctively know when a can is being opened, so if your cat is in the house at all it will miraculously appear in the kitchen and underfoot so quickly you'd swear Scotty had beamed it down. When the cat doesn't immediately find the can of "tuna" on a silver platter on the floor before them, they will assume that something must be wrong with the hired help, (i.e., you,) and will begin to whine. Thus the mocking may commence. To add the icing on the cake to your mocking, brazenly show your cat that the can you opened was not tuna at all but was in fact yams. This will irritate it to no end. Mission accomplished.
6) TASTE THE KITTY'S EARS
It is a well known fact that bad kitties have warm ears and good kitties have cold ears. No one really knows why, but it certainly ain't cause of any kind of guilt on the part of the cat. Cats are to guilt as Marilyn Manson is to wholesome family entertainment. Whatever the reason, the only way to tell if your cat has been bad recently is to put one of its ears in your mouth. Don't worry, you don't have to put the whole nasty, greasy, wax-ridden, mite-infested cat ear in your mouth. Just the tip of the ear. And no tongue! If the ear is hot, or even warm, then your cat has been bad very recently and should therefore be beaten. If the ear is cold, your cat has either been good recently or has just come in from the cold, in which case the only reason it had been outside in the first place was to get cold ears and hide the fact that it had been bad. Beat it. If the ear is simply tepid then your cat may have been bad in the recent past and is cooling into good, or has been good in the recent past and is now in the process of heating up to be bad. Whatever, the case, you should probably go ahead and beat your cat just to cover all your bases. If you don't want to go to the trouble of beating it, then at least spike tip it and play a good round of kitty butt bongo.
7) FOLLOW THE KITTY
A fun pastime for a bored afternoon. In addition to being proud creatures, cats are also paranoid creatures and don't take kindly to being stalked. Actual play of this game is fairly straightforward; you simply follow the kitty. Wherever your cat walks, you follow it. If it stops, you stop. When it moves again, you follow. As an alternative to following on foot, you can follow your cat on hands and knees, crawling after the kitty. The end result of the game varies. Often the kitty will get really pissed off and begin to complain, at which point you can play an exciting game of mock the kitty. Or it may just lie down on the floor to wait for you to go away, at which point you can play kitty butt bongo or any number of cat-ass related games. Eventually, it will get up and start moving again, at which point you may resume following until your heart's content. Never play Follow the Kitty outside because once a cat gets some space the game quickly turns into Chase the Kitty, which can get complicated, especially if there are a lot of trees in the area. Plus, once outside, those crafty cats can usually find some out of the way nook to hide in where you'll have no hope of finding it, let alone following it.
8) NO SLEEPY KITTY
One problem with owning a cat is that their sleep hours and your sleep hours rarely coincide. Cats sleep all day and wander the house at night. If they sleep at all at night, they'll usually wake up at least three hours before you'd like to and then proceed to bug the crap out of you until you get up to fetch them some food, let them out, change their litter, etc. Cats don't actually want any of this, though. What they want is an excuse to whine. If you give them food, change their litter or let them out you will have removed their original excuse to whine. But cats like to whine and hate it when their reasons for whining are removed. Fortunately for them, the removal of excuses to whine is in itself reason enough to start whining again. Your cat now has an excuse to wake you up complaining that they have too much food or that their litter is too clean or that they want to come back in. In any event, your precious sleep is disturbed and throwing yourself into a homicidal rage begins to seem like the only logical option. Fortunately for your cat, there is another option. The No Sleepy Kitty policy is a very effective way to deal with this problem. First of all, before you leave for work, force your cat to go outside. Once outside, cats are always on their guard because at any moment another cat might come walking up and they have to be prepared to act all catty about it. Cats won't go to sleep outside unless they're absolutely certain that they're safe, which is hardly ever since, again, they're paranoid. After work, let your cat back in the house and watch it like a hawk. Whenever it curls up on the back of the sofa to go to sleep, (or on the back of the Pleather recliner, lending you ample opportunity to play Kittapult,) sneak up on it, slap the couch cushions and yell "No Sleepy Kitty!" Do this whenever it tries to sleep and continue doing so for the rest of the evening. By the time you go to bed, the cat will be so exhausted that it will drop right off to sleep. When you get up to go to the can in the middle of the night, wake it up again. The end result of the No Sleepy Kitty method is that your cat will be far too tired to bother you in the morning, thus allowing you precious sleep and preventing you from killing it. (An alternate version of the game is to scream "Start Over!" whenever it goes to sleep. This is equally effective on humans who have just dropped off and is a classic bastard move.) (See Paddle the Kitty and the Kittapult.)
9) PADDLE THE KITTY
No actual paddle is required for play, nor is it recommended. This game is kind of similar to Kitty Butt Bongo, but uses fewer hands and doesn't involve singing. Once again, your cat should be on its side, whether naturally or because you have recently tipped it. When your cat is on its side, take the flat of your hand and rapidly, though lightly, paddle the hell out of its flank. Since your paddling is done with a light touch, it will not hurt the cat but will scare the hell out of it, especially if it was asleep. This is a marvelous game to use in conjunction with No Sleepy Kitty, where instead of screaming "No Sleepy Kitty" while paddling the surface of whatever your cat is sleeping on, you scream "No Sleepy Kitty" while paddling the surface of the cat. There is a danger to this torment, as some particularly masochistic cats actually like to be paddled. If this is the case then the game ceases to be a torment and becomes a fetish, which is really sick, so stop it!
10) FWIP THE KITTY'S TAIL
A game dating back to the Ancient Egyptian Empire, when household servants of the Pharaoh's were often put to death for playing it. Fwip the Kitty's Tail involves capturing the base of your cat's tail between your index and middle fingers and quickly raising your hand so as to give the tail some whip action, making a neat "fwipping" sound. The most effective method calls for the cat's tail to lie across the top of your index finger but under your middle finger so that the tip of the middle finger can touch the nail of the index. For those of you who are have less manual dexterity the index finger and thumb may be substituted, but with far less effective fwipping results. There is a variation on this game, called "Mr. Fwippy," where your index and middle fingers become a character called Mr. Fwippy. Mr. Fwippy's job is to bite the kitty and talk in a funny voice. You "bite" the kitty by bending your two fingers until they look like spider-fangs then use them to poke your kitty in the back. Unfortunately, this often causes the kitty to bite back and the kitty's bite is for real.
11) KITTY FANNY
Not all that similar to Kitty Butt Bongo or Paddle the Kitty, but does fall into the Cat-Ass category of cat game. Again, you must find a cat lying on its side. Next, slip one hand on the underside of the kitty's fanny while placing your other hand on the top. Then you rapidly lift the fanny with the underside hand while using your top hand both to push the fanny back down again and keep the cat from escaping. It is also vitally important to repeatedly chant the words "Kitty Fanny." This is one of the more irritating of the kitty games and there are few cats that will put up with it for any length of time. Most of the time, the cat will find a way to escape, which means you should be prepared to fend off cat claws should they make an appearance.
12) TAPE THE KITTY'S PAWS
Although this is a true classic of kitty torment methods, I'm not a big fan of it because it does require props. (I return to my stupid Lazer Mouse/Weather Channel product analogy--having to have props to torment a cat just seems uncreative to me.) However, since it is an all time classic and since it is pretty damn funny, I do include it here. Tape the Kitty's Paws involves taking a small piece of tape, preferably of the Scotch variety, and applying it to the bottom of one or more of your cat's feet. The cat will then try to walk on it, get pissed off that something's stuck on its foot, and proceed to comically shake its foot in an effort to free itself of the offending tape. While this is quite humorous, cats get wise to this act pretty quick and will run and hide at the first sign of your tape roll. As far as the mechanics of the torment go, the tape should always be applied to the pads of the feet where it can be easily removed after you get tired of watching the cat dance. Some tormentors have tried wrapping strips of tape around the cat's actual legs, but I'm here to tell you that this is inadvisable. The tape just sticks in the cat hair and is painful for the cat during removal. This moves beyond torment and into torture, which is never the goal. Scotch tape is probably the heaviest variety of tape you should use. If you use masking, electrical, or, God forbid, duct tape, you risk tearing off fur and flesh which is never comical. A way to avoid such tape-related problems is forego tape altogether and simply use rubber bands to tie little plastic bags over each of the cat's feet. It's a much more intensive process to get small plastic bags over each foot, but the end result is twice as comical as with tape. The main drawback to this method is finding tiny plastic bags in the first place, unless, of course, you're a coke-dealer, in which case you probably have plenty.
13) PET THE KITTY TO DEATH
Note: If played properly no cat need actually die in this game. Cats are moody beasts who don't always want attention from their owners and are prone to claw them when such unwanted attention is foisted upon them. However, when they are in the mood for attention, they want it here and they want it now and can be quite demanding about receiving it. Never mind that you may be otherwise engaged, watching television, reading, taking a dump, having sex, etc. This is where Pet the Kitty to Death comes in. The purpose of this game is to grab the kitty and pet it with rapidity and force so that you are able to reach the cat's petting quota for the day in as little time as possible. The expression on its face is quite priceless. It's a kind of "Hey! Hold it! Whoah! You're petting me WAY too fast! You bastard!" look. Warning, though, some cats actually enjoy this more then normal petting and we move back into the dangerous cat-fetish area if this is the case. When in doubt, avoid pleasing your cat.
14) WET HEAD
Unlike several of our previous cat games, which concentrated, some have suggested unhealthily, on the cat's ass, this game moves things right to the front of the matter, the cat's head. The head end of your cat is the loud and whining end of your cat. As we know, cats do the vast majority of their whining in the kitchen. This is because they know that the kitchen is where their ultimate goal is located, that goal being your food. A cat's primary tactic for getting your food is by standing in the kitchen, underfoot, whining eternally. Since whining is a tormentable offense and since you're both already in the kitchen, a great way of lightly disciplining your whining cat is to soak your hand under the kitchen tap and then grab your cat's whining head with the wet hand. This will do absolutely nothing to shut the cat up. All it does is soak their head and piss them off, but the hateful expression beaming from your cat's dripping head is always well worth the effort. An equally effective cat torment involving water and cat heads can be achieved provided you have the handy kitchen prop of a refrigerator that offers water and ice dispensers built into the outside of the door. You first need to test the water dispenser to see where on the floor its stream will strike if you don't put a glass in front of it to catch the water. The next step is to very surreptitiously lure your cat to stand on this target spot. If you can coax them to put their front paws on the fridge thereby putting their head even closer to the dangerous "chilled water" nozzle, then you're well ahead of the game. Then you press the little water trigger and watch the fun!
15) THE KITTY HOLD
Sometimes, while playing kitty games or just normally, one's kitty can become excited to the point of insanity. At this point they may begin running around the house as if wacked out on speed, clawing the furniture, knocking your valuable stuff off of shelves, spilling things and getting on your last damn nerve. It's in this situation that a time out should be called for, but until now cat-owners have been powerless to stop their animals from running amok. Rumors and legends have told of an ancient special grip, or hold, with which such a cat owner could subdue and immobilize such a cat without actually having to hurt it. Much. Now, thanks to the diligent efforts of a team of cultural anthropologists who spent years researching and interviewing the descendants of the master cat tormentors of the orient, the secrets of this legendary "Kitty Hold" can now be revealed. According to the masters, the really tricky part is actually capturing the cat without getting clawed in the process. So let's just assume you've been able to do that. Now for the hold: Use your right arm to hold the cat's body from underneath it while your left arm makes a grab for its back feet. Next, turn your cat so that it's head is facing to your right and hold the cat flat against your body using your right hand while your left contains its struggling back legs. At this point, the cat's front paws are probably trying to claw your right arm to get away. To stop this, bring your right hand up toward your left shoulder. The cat will think you're trying to crush its head and will put its paws into the crook of your elbow in an attempt to climb out and escape. But you're far too wily to let this happen. Once your right hand is gripping your left shoulder you will have both the cat's front paws and head cradled in the crook of your elbow where you can now apply pressure to prevent them from moving. Meanwhile, your left hand has hopefully secured its back legs and you can now bring your chin gently down on top of your cat's exposed head to prevent it from moving to bite you. Your cat is now in the Kitty Hold and is powerless before you. You can now allow it whatever degree of small movement you wish, but if it starts trying to escape you have but to apply slight pressure and all is well. Warning: Cats DO NOT like to have their movement constricted and will get quite verbal about it, but there's very little they can do about it once in the Kitty Hold. For it is written in the great tomes of the master cat tormentors:"For no cat shall ever be able to escape from the Kitty Hold. But lo, there shall be born a new kind of cat whose name will be spoken on the tongues of angry owners, and their tongues shall call him Atilla: The Ever Living. And lo, this new and frightening creature shall be unable to use a litter-box, for though his feet be in the box, his ass hangs from the side. And this cat will be of such strength that he shall easily escape from the kitty hold, even though the hold be applied by Joe Evans. And a new and more powerful breed of cat would arise from his mighty loins to return the torment of his species on their tormentors, except that his owner got him fixed."
16) ROLL THE KITTY
This can be played either on its own or immediately following a nice game of tip the kitty. When the kitty is laying on its side, you put a hand under its legs, lift the hand and the cat is rolled over with its legs falling on the other side. If you have a hand waiting to catch the legs you can roll the kitty back to the other side. Do this quickly and repeatedly, while singing, to the tune of Rawhide, the lyrics "Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'! Get them kitties rollin'! Keep them kitties rollin', Rawhide... yah!" Much fun is produced.
17) WET TOWEL ON THE KITTY
This is a fun pastime, but does require props. You'll need a towel and a good quantity of moisture, both easily available following a bath, shower, swim or just after using a towel to soak up cat urine following an error in excretory judgment. Let's take it from the shower perspective. Following a shower, use your towel to dry yourself off completely. When you are finished, hold the towel lengthwise and begin stalking your cat. Most cats won't catch on until the second or third time you do this, but eventually they'll get the message and run from you in mortal terror. After you've stalked your cat for a sufficient period of time, throw the wet towel onto it, completely covering your cat. Cats are proud and holy creatures and do not like to have wet towels thrown on them. They often will not acknowledge its presence immediately or will pretend that they meant to have a wet towel thrown on them, so as to save face. Some cats have been known to walk around the house with a wet towel draped over their ass for upwards of twenty minutes. It may thus take the cat quite some time find its way from under the wet towel, especially if you were wise and used a beach towel. For added fun, throw your wet towel onto the cat when it is facing away from a large solid object such as a wall. If completely covered, the cat will try to back from under the towel, but will not be able to do so since its ass will bump up against the wall. It will have nowhere to go and will likely start to cry. Mission accomplished.
18) ZURBET THE KITTY
If you've watched THE COSBY SHOW of the 1980s you're probably familiar with the concept of zurbeting. For those of you who are not, zurbeting involves creating a flatulent sound by pressing ones mouth to the flesh of someone else, usually on the stomach area, and blowing. It doesn't make quite as impressive a sound, but this technique can be applied to cats as well. When zurbeting cats, it is often helpful to buzz ones lips, like a trumpet player, to create a more satisfying zurbety sound. Cats, of course, hate this and always attempt to escape. It is therefore wise to make sure its claws are not within striking distance of your face and eyes.
19) SOCK IT TO THE KITTY
Another classic and prop-intensive cat-game, which, as the title suggests, requires a sock. Unlike 'Tape the Kitty's Paws,' you don't have to worry about what kind of sock to use. Any sock is fine, provided it is able to stretch enough to fit around, say, a cat head. (You can see where this is going can't you?) Place your kitty in your lap, holding her between your knees so she can't get away. (Don't use the Kitty Hold, unless you have a partner in crime to put the sock on while you hold the cat.) Now take the sock and, opening the foot-insertion end, place it over your kitty's head. Return the cat to the floor and the action can begin. Much like in Wet Towel on the Kitty, your cat will try to walk backwards in an attempt to back itself out of the sock. And, again like Wet Towel on the Kitty, if it backs into a wall or into a corner, it will probably give up and sit down to cry. A few cats are able to figure out that if they attack the sock with their claws they can pull it from their heads. For those cats who are clueless, though, it is not recommended that you leave the sock on for very long as you may end up with a suffocated kitty. If you're looking for punishment as well as torment, a smelly gym sock will really do the trick.
20) KITTY UNDER GLASS
Okay, for this game you're gonna need a big ass sheet of clear plexi-glass. Now granted, big ass sheets of clear plexi-glass are not common items to be found lying around the house and aren't terribly sensible things to have at all, unless you're into role playing games that involve miniatures and you need a big ass sheet of plexi-glass to cover your hex-map so you don't get grease pencil marks on it. But you'd have to be some kind of huge nerd to do that. If you happen to have a big sheet of plexi-glass handy, preferably one that is at least as wide as, say, a doorway, a fun thing to do is set it up in said doorway then go find your cat. The idea is to torment the cat in such a way that you'll cause it to try and run out of the room to get away from you. You can use a wide variety of the kitty games here in order to do this but the best method I've found is to chase the cat with the help of a bunch of drunken role players. The desired end-result, however, is that the cat winds up colliding with the big ass sheet of plexi-glass, which hopefully it will be too busy to take notice of. Then, while it's still dazed, corner it again and chase it back to the glass. Cat's usually won't run into the plexi-glass twice, but their look of horror at being able to see their escape route, yet be impotent to use it is delightful. Another fun thing to do is to take the big ass sheet of plexi-glass and follow the cat around with it, blocking its path and adjusting it to block the new path the cat chooses to get away from the blocked first path.
21) SLIPPIN'
This is a fine game to play when releasing your cat from the Kitty Hold or just whenever you'd like to put them down and screw with their minds at the same time. First of all, you'll need to play this game while wearing a shirt that is not a color that runs counter to your cat's. For instance, you don't want to wear a black shirt while playing this game with, say, an orange cat who sheds like a Vegas stripper in July. To play Slippin', find your cat and hold it in your arms, preferably cradling it with its back pointed toward the ground. Next, slowly begin to loosen your grip on your cat, allowing gravity to take hold and start pulling it downward. At first you should do this very slowly and subtly so as not to arouse kitty-suspicion. Cats are quick thinkers, though, and will catch on fairly soon. They'll become panicked that they will be dropped. At this point, you should start the verbal psychological-attack. Say things to your kitty like: "You're slippin!" or "Oh, yer slippin'!" or "Oh, my goodness, you're slippin'" or "Ya could hardly be slippin' more" or "Get you, you're slippin'" and, of course, the ever-popular, "You're slippin' so much you're about to fall to your death." Continue to gradually loosen your grip. Your cat will help you in this game by sticking out paws to attempt to steady its slow descent, using the back of its head as an anchor point and might actually dig claws into your arm a bit. You probably don't have to worry about the cat doing any actual claw damage to you, though, because the cat is already afraid you're gonna but doesn't want to piss you off by clawing you cause then you're most assuredly going to drop it. Just before the cat is about to actually fall, gather back into your arms and say "Oh, look, I've saved you." Your cat will be far from grateful, which is why you should immediately repeat the game.
22) TWIQUE THE KITTY
A versatile game that can be played by itself or in competition with a friend and their cat. Twique the Kitty is played by finding a cat, either sleeping or merely stationary, and twiquing only the very tip ends of a finger-sized section of its little kitty hair in an attempt to induce muscle spasms. Yes, thanks to Old Man Evolution, cats are terribly sensitive to the gentle prodding of their fur. Their unconscious mind thinks that the twiquing is caused by some sort of insect that has landed on their fur to bite them and will violently react in order to shoo the offending bug away. What their unconscious mind doesn't know is that you're the cause of the fur-twiquing and aren't planning on being shooed away any time soon. Unfortunately, the cat's conscious mind often gets wise to what's going on and convinces the cat to relocate in order to avoid being prodded. Thus the goal of this game is to continue causing muscle spasms in your cat for as long a period of time as you can stand without being so obvious that it gets pissed off and runs away. Often times, the cat will catch on but will not move because it's far too content with its position. It will resort to giving you dirty looks, hoping to shame you into stopping. However, if you actually stop tormenting your cat because of mere dirty look then you should be ashamed, for you will no longer be a worthy student of cat torment and David Caradine will come to your house and kick you in the ass.
23) MAKE A WISH
A quick game to be played when one's cat is sitting on one's chest with its face facing yours. Calmly reach up with both hands and firmly take hold of your kitty's ears as though you were holding bicycle grips. Now tell your kitty to "Make a wish!" in a sing-song silly voice, making sure to draw out the shhh sound of the word "wish." If done properly, the cat's eyes will become quite wide with fear that you really are about to rip its ears off. I don't recommend actually ripping off your kitty's ears. It tends to get messy and then there's the whole problem of having to decide what to do with a couple of ripped kitty ears. They just don't go well on a key-chain nor do they taste good in a soup. Plus, it'll just give your cat something to whine about and it can whine even louder now that it can claim to be hard of hearing. You need that like Mick Jagger needs more illegitimate kids.
24) HEY CAT
Pretty much anyone who has a cat plays this game on a daily basis. Hey Cat is played whenever you see your cat doing something that it shouldn't be doing. In the correct hands, a good "Hey Cat" can work miracles on cat behavior. It is a mighty power that can be wielded with whatever degree of force or gentility is necessary to instill the exact degree of fear you wish. (And if you have a Weirding Module, like those guys in DUNE, you can blow your cat into several pieces with a mere word. "The Hey Cat is a killing word.") You can use a very low volume "Hey Cat" if, for instance, you simply see your cat in the same room as, let's say, a garbage can full of corn cobs, the very kind it likes to pull out of the garbage, strew around the floor and hide behind the toilet, and you wish to give it a warning shot across its bow. Your cat might not take much offense at this low volume "Hey Cat", since being in the kitchen is rarely a crime. But, as your cat gains proximity to the garbage can in question, you might choose to increase the volume of your "Hey Cat" to draw its attention and show that you mean business. (If you own a Goat Kitty, as I do, it would then angrily say "Mayayayayayat" in response to being caught near the garbage.) If you actually catch your cat touching, or, dare I say it, actually in the garbage can you are then authorized to issue a full volume "Hey Cat" that will ideally drive it screaming from the can certain in the knowledge that dire punishment is about to be brought forth onto its kitty head. But at no point should you actually have to move from your chair to deliver this punishment. The mere threat of it should be enough. If your cat does not respond appropriately to your "Hey Cat" then you obviously haven't beaten it nearly enough and should consider taking up the hobby.
25)
SMACK THE CIGARETTE OUT OF THE KITTY'S MOUTH
A tremendous problem among the youth of America is chain-smoking. This goes doubly so for kitty cats, who are impressionable, holy creatures with a fierce thirst for tobacco products. Ask any veterinarian what the biggest complaint his customers have and he'll say "chain-smoking kitties." If this is a problem in your household there's a kitty game that can help. When you catch your cat sneaking a smoke, just smack the cigarette out of its mouth. Smacking cigarettes out of mouths is a tried and true bastard move which will serve not only to keep your cat from smoking that particular cigarette but will also serve to piss it off. Once you've stopped your cat from smoking you can start asking yourself other necessary questions. Question: How do I keep my cat from smoking? Answer: Don't give it any cigarettes and don't leave money laying out on the coffee table in plain view. Question: How do I keep my cat from bumming cigarettes from strangers? Answer: Don't teach it language skills. Sure, this may seem obvious on the surface, but one day you'll find yourself sitting across from your cat at the dinner table discussing subject/verb agreement over a plate of Tender Vittles. Then you'll see the true horror of which I speak. I tell you this because I know.
26) PATTY CAKE
Most people are familiar with the children's game Patty Cake, where you take a small child's hands and forcibly pat them together, chanting "Patty Cake Patty Cake, baker's man/Bake me a cake as fast as you can/roll it and pat it and mark it with a b/and put it in the oven for baby and me." Well, this variation is almost exactly the same except instead of force-patting the hands of a small child, you force pat the paws of your kitty. This is not as easy to accomplish as it sounds. Cats don't care to have any part of their anatomy force patted, let alone their paws. There's also the logistical problem that cat paws are usually found beneath their running bodies and not dangling out in the air for anyone to walk up and grab. To remedy this, you must capture your cat and flip it onto its back and then onto your lap. This will put your cat's paws into prime grabbing position. It may be necessary to secure the cat's back legs, especially if it's a known back-leg clawer. Once all is ready, forcibly pat your kitty's front paws together chanting the lyrics to Patty Cake. You may, if you must, alter the last verse to say "And put it in the oven for kitty and me." Now whereas most babies enjoy playing patty cake, at no time is your cat likely to enjoy the experience. Use this to your tormenting advantage. If your cat gets upset and tries to get away during the actual play of Patty Cake, you should re-start the game from the beginning and slowly make your way through the verses all over again. Once you've successfully made it through the rhyme, you may release your infuriated cat.
27) PILE STUFF ON THE KITTY
A great game to play while laying around on the floor in a messy room with your cat. The trick is to wait until the cat lies down and then see just how much random junk you can pile on top of the cat before it gets up and runs away. Now, the object is NOT to put large heavy objects on the cat so that it is weighted down and can't get away. This is hardly sporting. You should use smaller lighter items, the kind that might not get noticed immediately, such as paper, dirty socks, carpet fluff, cat-hair tumble-weeds, old magazines, dead bugs, or even other cats. This is an especially good game to play after doing laundry before you've folded all your clothes. Or you can use a pile of dirty clothes before laundering them in case you don't want to get cat hair on em. Cats will put up with a certain degree of this sort of thing before getting fed up and trying to scratch off whatever you've put on it. Your cat may even viciously attack the object, or even you.
28) KArt
Almost indistinguishable from Pile Stuff on the Kitty except to the trained eye of a cat game specialist. With KArt your goal is to pile stuff on or around your kitty in such a way as to make an artistic statement of socially redeeming value and/or for shits & grins. This is much the same theory behind the use of parsley and hollandaise sauce lines in conjunction with food. In fact, if you want to use parsley and hollandaise sauce on your cat while creating KArt, more power to you. First off find your cat when it's lying down or, if necessary, just knock it over. Start with maybe a sock draped ever so cavalierly across your cat's ass. Add then a sock of a different color across its midsection or along the curve of its spine. Experiment with different colors and textures of clothing in your KArt. Or even better, catch your cat napping outdoors and cover it in flowers, dirt, bugs, weeds, etc. in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Some KArtists prefer to preserve their work by photographing their cat following KArtification. KArt purists, however, argue that the very transitory nature of the art form is its greatest strength and that KArt is to be savored only for the brief moment of its duration.
29) NO LICKY KITTY
A fine game to play on a boring Sunday afternoon, or just whenever your cat happens to be within arm's reach. Unlike a dog—an animal that will eat not only its own feces but the feces of any other creature, whilst rolling around in something dead for a half hour—a cat will keep itself clean by incessantly licking its fur for hours on end. And nothing pisses a cat off more than when you prevent it from incessantly licking its fur for hours on end. No Licky Kitty does just that. To play No Licky Kitty, simply find your cat and wait for it to begin its incessant licking. Whenever it does, gently move whichever body part it's attempting to lick away from its mouth. You will probably get several confused looks before the real kitty stink eye session begins, but fear not it will. The cat will have basically four options at this point. It can whine, but we all know how ineffective this little maneuver is. It can try to escape, but this will just give you the opportunity to play Follow the Kitty until you can catch up to it, at which point the game resumes. It can claw you, which it might depending on which body parts you're preventing it from licking, but clawing will likely result in further torments. The third option is to try and wait you out, to simply not lick until you get tired of waiting. They may even feign sleep. Unfortunately, cats have terribly short attention spans. In the history of catdom, the longest amount of time a cat has spent attempting to wait out its owner before licking is exactly 43 seconds. And most cats are light weights compared to that. You can take em.
30) SPIN THE KITTY
First, find a kitty laying down on a linoleum or tiled floor (If this can not be accomplished, then grab a kitty and bring it to the floor). Then put one hand on the kitty's shoulders and the other on the kitty's butt. Spin the kitty around in circles for ten to twenty seconds and then let go. The kitty will then try to run away, but it will run towards the side instead due to the kitty's messed up equilibrium. If the cat does not run though, you can still watch its head move in a circle trying to compensate for the spinning world that it perceives.
31) LEAFING LAS KITTIES
A great and harmless cat game to save for Autumn. First you should rake up all the leaves in your yard into piles (or, at the very least, wait for your neighbors to rake all the leaves in their yard into piles). Next go find your cat, capture it and take it out to the largest leaf pile you can find. Now, you already know from the title of this game that the object here is to hurl your cat into the big pile of leaves. You also know the good guys are gonna win before sitting down to watch Return of the Jedi for the 253rd time. But the enjoyment is in the process, eh? Now with cat in clutches and leaf pile at feet, inform your cat of it's upcoming fate. Point out the leaf pile to your cat. Make sure your cat looks at it. Then tell your cat, in no uncertain terms, that it shall be hurled into the leaves within mere seconds. And, finally, using your best Emperor Palpatine voice, tell your cat "It is your desssstiny." Once the cat is all good and worked up about the issue, hurl it into the leaves. If the pile is good and deep, the cat will sink out of sight and remain there briefly before trying to struggle its way out. It will probably give you dirty looks if it is dumb enough to hang around. If it is, grab it and start the game over.
32) DRAG THE KITTY ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN A MOVING VAN
This is a difficult game to play as it requires an awful lot of props, work and expense to achieve and in the long run turns out to be more of a human torment than a cat torment. But if you've got the time, effort and cash, go right ahead and be my guest. First off for this game you'll need a destination to move to. For my first attempt at this game, I chose to move to North Carolina from Mississippi, which is only about an 8 hour trip in a car and is a 12 hour trip in a fully loaded moving van. Next you'll need to take all your stuff and put it into cardboard boxes. Depending on how much stuff you have, this could take hours or days. Mine took about a week, but I also had a job at the time. Next you'll need to work out any problems you may have with your utilities and get them all paid off. This can be a real hassle, especially when you don't have a forwarding address and can't get a post office box in the state you are moving to cause the bastards require a North Carolina driver's license before they'll even deem to give you an audience, let alone a box. You'll probably need to arrange for a moving van while you're at it. This too is time consuming cause you want to get the best deal you can and will need to shop around. Once you've secured a moving van and done all of the above, you'll need to load all your shit into it. This too is a monster amount of effort to expend and makes me tired just thinking about it. Once you've loaded your shit in the van and made sure it won't break or nothing, and once you've cleaned your apartment from stem to stern, taking special care to return the borrowed air-conditioner from next door that you had originally tried to take without permission after your own air-conditioner gave up the ghost and which you then had to bargain your very soul for once your landlord caught you in the process of stealing it-marking only the second time you've even seen him on the property-and with whom you had to agree to clean up your festering hellhole of an apartment and return the stolen air-conditioner to it's rightful place. Now it's time to find your cat. Some cats are good travelers. You can just chunk em in the car and they'll curl right up in the passenger seat and go right to sleep, dreaming cute little kitty dreams and occasionally purring along with the hum of the engine. If your cat is like that then you may as well unpack all your shit and stay home cause this won't be much of a torment for it. However if your cat is, say, like mine, a bad traveler, then you're in business. You put them in a moving van at 3 in the morning and set out on Hwy 78 toward Birmingham and they will be guaranteed to spend at least the first three hours of the trip screaming their little kitty lungs out while desperately clawing at the glass. At some point after that they will probably start to calm down a little bit and may even settle down behind the seat, emitting a slower trickle of terrified meows. Or, like my cat, they may burrow under the dash and try to claw their way through the firewall to reach the engine. Whichever, it's still being tormented as a result of decisions made by you and that's the whole point.
33) ELECTRO-SHOCK KITTY
The research and development of this particular cat torment was actually conducted on a dog, specifically my friend Matthew's poodle Lupie. Like most poodles, Lupie was pretty much begging for someone to torment him just by being alive. We discovered that during the dead of winter, when the air is good and dry, it was incredibly satisfying to build up a big static charge by scootching our wool-slipper covered feet along Matthew's living room carpet then find Lupie and touch him on the nose. The resulting tiny arc of electricity was usually enough to send the dog into a very entertaining fit of growling rage. (For those of you who now think I'm just a cruel and heartless bastard for doing this, you should know that Lupie eventually took his revenge by biting me on the eye, so I got my just desserts.) The Electro-Shock Doggie method translates almost as effectively to kitties. I say almost because rather than entertainingly snarling at you for shocking them on the nose, most cats will just look horribly offended and run away to hide. An alternate and more entertaining method for applying static shock to a cat is to catch the cat lying on thick carpet during the dead of winter and then physically rub the cat's body against the carpet. This is best done by either playing Spin The Kitty or by rubbing it over the carpet's surface as if you were scrubbing the floor with it. This causes static to rapidly build and release in a series of tiny electrical explosions along the surface of the cat. On particularly cold days the crackle from this can get pretty loud. Be warned, though, that cats are conductive little beasts and you're chances of getting shocked while rubbing the cat over the rug are pretty high. It's still more than worth it.
34) CAT-PI
New Cat Games Page contributor (and my cousin) Michael J. Fritzius came up with the following while studying for a calculus exam: Cat-Pi involves grabbing the tail of a mobile, non-running cat, picking its hind region off the floor by the tail, and pivoting it around 180 degrees, or one pi radian, so that it faces the other way. It's kind of a forced about face. If the cat doesn't take off running, they sometimes stand there a little disoriented because this is obviously not the direction they were heading in to begin with. Obviously this torment doesn't work on specific breeds of cats, like a Manx cat, and shouldn't be done on cats which are suspected of not having load bearing tails or large ends.
35) SHOVE THE KITTY
Michael J. Fritzius writes: The Kitty Shove is employed on a cat who is sitting on the floor with all of its feet tucked underneath itself. Walk up to the cat quietly if it's sleeping, or just walk up there, because the cat'll be awake by the time you sneak/bound up next to it anyway. Then, either with your hand or your foot, push on the side of the cat so that it rolls onto its other side. You don't want to *slam* the cat onto its side, but rather eeeeeeeeease it. Also, you must accompany this action by saying the word "SHOOOOOOVE!" until the move is completed. It's generally easier to use the foot method because it's hard for lazy college students like myself to bend down to shove the cat. Also, true masters of Zen Kitty Shoving can shove a cat and have it perform a complete revolution and resume its original position about one foot from its starting point. I think the record amount of rolls for one shove is like 28 or something.
36) JINGLE BELLS
This can be a festive holiday game, or you can play it year round, assuming it works for you at all. This might, in fact, be a cat game that only works on my cat, Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty, who is wired up way differently than most cats I've met. In some ways I feel kind of responsible for the rewiring of the cat. As if all of the above cat games don't qualify, when my cat and her siblings were just kittens, I used to go and lay on the floor near their kitty bed and squeak at them. This usually involved pressing my lips together and forcing air through them, causing a high pitched squeak, or by just using my voice box to make high squeaky sounds. When I did, the kittens would all come over and try to look in my mouth, probably thinking that one of their siblings had crawled down in there by mistake. When Winston got older, we found that the lips-together squeaky sound caused her to come to you about 90 percent of the time. So for years that's what we've used to call her when we want her to come over or to otherwise communicate with her. Last Christmas, my wife happened to be sitting around the house whistling Jingle Bells to herself. (We live in West Virginia. There's not a lot to do.) She noticed that when she whistled, Winston began acting peculiarly. And the louder and faster she whistled the more peculiar Winston became. The cat began running around the house mewing as if something was very very wrong. It was the kind of mewing that, had it come from, say, Lassie's mouth, a search party would have been formed to go dredge the local lakes for little Timmy's corpse. This being the case, we began experimenting. We found that other tunes, when whistled, had mildly similar effects on the cat, but Jingle Bells really brought it home. We also tried a whistling duet of Jingle Bells, which just about sent the cat into a panic attack. Taking into consideration the adage With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, we decided not to whistle very much around Winston, least we blow one of her already strained kitty fuses. So far we have found no other cats that are affected in this manner.
37) CROW CALL KITTY
New Cat Games Page contributor Brandon McAlister writes: I've found a great way to destroy your cat's day. Go to a local hunting store and get a crow call. I would drink beer on my porch with friends and my cat was always trying to escape. One day I happened upon a crow call. This thing is possibly the loudest most obnoxious thing any one has ever heard! You can learn to change the pitch with your teeth and they only cost about $5-$10. Now all I have to do is pick this thing up and my cat runs and hides for hours. Its really great for when there sleeping, eating or anytime you want to sneak up and scare the hell out of them. (PS. Also gets drunks out of your house when the party is over!)
38) THE PERSIAN JUMPING CAT OF VENTURA COUNTY
This cat game really should occur far earlier in the list, like #1 even. It's the first cat-game I ever heard of and is a story I've heard from a very early age. Shortly before my birth, my parents lived in Oxnard, CA where they owned a fluffy white Persian cat named Cuddles. One day, while in the bedroom, my dad decided to play a game with the cat. He stepped into the bedroom closet, closed the door and began calling, "Heeeere, kitty kitty kitty." Sure enough, the cat comes in, hears him in the closet, claws under the door a bit until it's apparent that it won't be able to open it with mere claws, then settles down on the floor to wait him out. Dad comes out, the cat gives him a "Yeah, I knew you were in there," look and goes about its merry way. An idea then occurred to Dad. He dug out his cassette tape recorder and recorded two minutes of himself saying, "Heeeere, kitty kitty kitty," and the like. He placed the tape recorder in the closet, hit play, stepped into the bathroom and said, "Wife, bring the cat." Cuddles came in, heard dad's voice in the closet, clawed under the door for a bit then sat down to wait Dad out again. At this point, Dad stepped out of the bathroom and Cuddles leapt three feet into the air in shock and surprise. I haven't personally tried this game, but it always warms my heart to think about it.
39) SLEEPY KITTY SURPRISE
I'm terribly irritated about having this next game sent to me by someone else as it is one I've been playing with my cat for most of her life, not to mention my previous cat before that, yet I have somehow failed to put on the page until now. New Cat Games contributor Rod Higo writes: As your cat is laying around next to you being lazy as all cats do, pay attention to when it yawns. Notice how its eyes completely close during its yawn. Notice how wide they open their mouths during that yawn. Now here's the fun and challenging part: You need to recognize the start of the yawn, and quickly get your finger over there in its mouth. It's quite humorous to see its surprised reaction and the annoying glare that follows it up." My own addendum to this is that your cat's reaction will be even MORE extreme if you manage to cram, say, a dirty sock into its mouth when it yawns. This game is terribly fun to play on people as well, with much the same results.
40) HELE-KITTY
Cat Games contributor Bob Meador writes: "Look for a cat that's standing on all four feet. Come up along side it, so you're both facing the same direction. Reach down over the cat with the hand that's on the same side as the cat, and grab it around the side and under the belly. You're going to want to lift the cat by the belly/chest area, and make sure it's well balanced front-to-back. As you lift the cat off the ground, begin rotating your thumb forward, so the cat rotates its head away from you. As the cat reaches shoulder level it will be pointing backwards. Continue rotating in the same direction as you lift the cat over your head. You're now at one complete revolution of the cat. Continue rotating in the same direction as you bring the cat back down. When it touches down, the cat will have made two complete revolutions and will likely be a bit confused, but not run away. So, do it again! It may take a little practice to get the hang of the arm geometry. Flexibility is important - old, arthritic people should probably not attempt this. And be careful not to drop the cat on your head."
41) CATFLIP
Cat Games contributor Bob Meador writes: "Find an unsuspecting cat sitting facing away from you. It is best if the cat small and is sitting upright but reasonably relaxed. A slouching cat may fail at this exercise. Approaching the cat from behind, place one hand on each side of its butt, with your thumbs pointing down and forward, and your fingers pointing down and backwards. In one smooth motion, grab/cup the cat's butt with your hands, (Editor's note: ewww!), and quickly rotate your hands up and forward, over and back down again, keeping them near the ground. Your hands will have rotated through 360 degrees, as will the cat, performing a near-instantaneous backflip and landing in exactly the same seated position it started from. The cat will likely be confused by the impression that a lot seemed to have just happened, yet here I am exactly where I was before. It may stick around long enough for another flip."
42) SMEAR THE KITTY
Some will argue that this belongs on the Rejected cat games page, but I think it's just fine right here. I've only played this game once and will probably never do so again, but its play cries out to be reported. Once upon a time, back when I was in high school, my stinky little sister had a cat named Sam. Sam, went on to gain the distinction of being the mother of my cat Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty, but at the time she was still innocent and had not known a Tom's touch. Sam was a fairly decent cat as things go, except for her eternal fondness for shitting in my bedroom. Technically she was litter-box trained, so it wasn't an every day occurrence. On special occasions, though, such as days when I left my bedroom door open, she would often go in and leave me a steaming warm present, usually waaaaaay back underneath the bed where we'd have to rearrange all my furniture to get to it. My sister would come in and do a half-assed job of rubbing her cat's wittle nosy in the poo as punishment before cleaning it up. Days would pass, my door would be left open and the cycle would begin anew. Well one day, after finding a paricularly rank pile of soft-serve cat crap in my room and being unable to find my sister to dish out kitty-punishment, I hit upon a novel idea. I secured her cat under one arm and secured a paper towel full of pudding-consistency poo in the other hand. I then took both into the back yard where I applied the paper towel to the back of the cat's head, poo-side down, and smeared the rest of it down her spine all the way to the tip of her tail. I then deposited the cat in the grass and headed back inside. Seemed a fitting punishment, as now the cat had to find a way to clean all the poo from its hard to reach places, (added irony points for me), plus she was banned from the house for several days due to being caked in cat shit. I am happy to report that the punishment worked and the cat never shit in my room again, though whether this was due to the punishment itself or the fact that the cat soon began spending months at a time on sabatical, only returning twice a year or so to drop a load of kittens on us, is still up for debate.
43) PUPPY PILE ON THE KITTY
Another of my sister's cats was a white kitty named Pee Wee. Pee Wee was something of a bitch, being fond of clawing kids (i.e. me) when they'd just barely begun irritating him using early cat-game prototypes. He was also fond of indiscriminate cat-shitting in my bedroom. (Are ya seeing a pattern here?) His punishment was sometimes swift but not especially fierce. At the time of this game's inception, our family dog, Lucy, had recently given birth to 7 or 8 squirming little puppies. When the puppies were several weeks old, they discovered the joy of cats. They didn't hate cats, mind you. Far from it. They loved them! They thought cats were great and rushed over to lick them and squirm over them at every chance. I, of course, gave them ample opportunity. I'd open the sliding glass back door, deposit Pee Wee on the patio and yell "Herrrre, puppy, puppy, puppy!" Suddenly, from within the doghouse would burst a swarm of puppies, all baloney-breathed and full of manic licky-dog energy. They'd spy Pee Wee and make for him like he was a giant Snausage. Even providing for the monochrome eyesight of a puppy, a stark white cat against a red brick background doesn't stand a chance. So unless Pee Wee was really swift on his feet, he would be quickly stampeded by the puppies who would squirm over him and one another in an attempt to lick their new favorite friend. It was like watching piraña feed. Every now and then, a white paw would extend from deep within the puppy pile and claw briefly for a hold on the cement before being sucked back into the swirling mass. Eventually, soaked to the bone in puppy spit, Pee Wee would escape, leap the back fence and be free of them for a brief time. Sometimes he would run around and take refuge inside the house via a curiously open front door, only to be scooped up by a lurking evil child and dumped into the canine maelstrom once again. (Okay, so I was a little bastard.)
44) I KNOW WHY THE CAGED KITTY SINGS
This game does involve a prop, but it's a completely common and utilitarian prop that you probably have lying around in your bedroom anyway so you don't have to deduct points for using it. I'm talking about a laundry basket. I find that when I'm doing laundry and have just dumped a load of clean clothes on the bed, really the most convenient place to store my now empty laundry basket is atop a nearby cat. Especially when it's my cat Winston, cause she hates laundry baskets. I don't know if it's because she associates them with the beatings she used to receive after being caught pissing on basket after basket of freshly laundered clothing. Maybe so. Whatever the case, she don't go for the laundry baskets, so I put em on her. Inside her cage of green PVC, the little kitty begins to whine. The whine becomes a moan. The moan becomes a wail. And the wail becomes a song. Warning: Some kitties actually enjoy playing in laundry baskets, so this may not actually be a proper torment for them. My cat is about 40 percent crazy to start, so don't take her as an example. Test out your cat in private before committing to such a torment with witnesses.
45) DUTCH OVEN
This is a classic centuries-old torment for living things in general, but it also works great on cats. For those unfamiliar with the Dutch Oven concept, basically you have two people in a bed, or one person and one cat. One of the people experiences the sudden need for an intestinal vapor release, (i.e. a fart). They then shove the other person, or cat, underneath the covers and hold them there while at the same time opening up the ol' backdoor valve (i.e. the cornhole), subjecting the victim to potentially horrible methane-based stench from deep within their fundament. This works even better if you have a cat who actually likes to go under the covers of its own volition, especially one that likes nothing better than to snug down between your legs to sleep. You drop an F-bomb on them there and you can lift the covers up for a glimpse of one of the most profound expressions a cat-face is capable of forming.
46) CANNIBAL KITTY
This game is usually only effective for very small cats, i.e. Kittens, and has a very short span of effective play in direct proportion to your kitten's learning curve. Kitten's being frisky and playful creatures, you should get them good and worked up by playing more traditional cat games with it, such as chasing cat-toys, or string or even a damn Lazer-Mouse. (Yes, I'm advocating using props, but only to further the cause of one of the most brilliant cat torments you can ever inflict. Deal with it.) After your kitten is all hyper and excitable, pick them up and turn them on their back. Then, with one arm cradling the cat, use your other hand to grab their tail and dangle it in front of their nose. The kitten, still wound up from chasing and attacking string for the past ten minutes, will assume this is another game and will start attacking its own tail. At first it will probably just bat at it, which will be merely a curious experience for it. If you're diligent and patient, though, the kitten, still in attack mode, will eventually go so far as to bite the tip of their own tail. If done properly, this will elicit a low growl of anger from the cat. It may not even realize what it has done and will somehow believe it is being counterattacked by the dangling wand of fluff it has between its teeth. It may even bite down harder, eliciting an even louder growl. Eventually, your kitten will learn a valuable lesson and will no longer bite its own tail no matter how long you dangle it. This is natural and a part of life. Enjoy the game while it lasts.
47) WET PUSSY DOUBLE FEATURE
This isn't so much a cat game as a chronicle of a cat punishment that got extended to include other parties. It does involve specific props and acting like a rage-addled 8-year-old, but it more than makes up for it in satisfaction. Back in the day, when I was in college and lived in a house with four other guys, my cat Winston was at the height of her infinite badness. She and indiscriminate pissing were common partners in crime. One of her favorite things to do was to piss on piles of clean clothes. Now, usually she limited her clothes-pile-pissing activities to my roommate's clothes. This was because they were constantly leaving baskets of freshly cleaned clothing out where Winston could get to them and deposit suspicious-smelling stains in the middle of them. There were also certain patches of carpet that Winston was fond of marking and we had to be on constant lookout when she was near them. We found the best way to deter her was to spray her down with a SuperSoaker 250. (You know, those big water guns with the air-pressure tank on top that were all the rage in the early 90s?) They worked great. Usually, we didn't even have to spray her, we just had to hold up the gun and shake it a little and she'd be running away in an instant. I even kept a pistol model, the SuperSoaker 50, by my bed to take care of noisy cats who dared disturb my sleep. Well, one day, I walked into my bedroom to find my cat sitting atop a pile of my clean clothes having herself a good wee. This stupid bitch cat was mere feet away from the litterbox, yet she was still pissing on my clothes! I cried out in rage and ran for my SuperSoaker, giving the cat time to run past me and down the stairs. I gave chase and nearly collided with one of my roommates and his terrible beast of a girlfriend coming up the stairs. The Beast saw what I was doing and began to bitch at me for daring to chase my poor innocent cat. "Innocent my ass! She pissed on my clothes!" I said. My roommate, who had been the recipient of multiple clothes-pissings himself, rolled his eyes and continued past me. The Beast did not. She wedged herself up in my face and continued to berate me, in my own home no less, for something that was far from any of her damn business. It's not like I was vivisecting the cat; I was just rapidly applying water to it and I wasn't even doing that because by the time the Beast finally managed to shut her gob and go upstairs the cat had long since gone to ground. I cussed and fumed to myself, continuing my vengeful search for Winston, to no avail. Finally, I put down my gun and sat to watch some TV. A few minutes later, my roommate and the Beast came back down on their way out. "You know, if you changed the litterbox once in a while your cat wouldn't pee on your clothes," the Beast said. I was instantly furious. Normally, the Beast's point would have been unassailable, as the litterbox was often filthy to the point of gaining sentience and demanding voting rights. But that very morning, I had cleaned it out, removed ALL of the old littler and replaced it with fresh. That cat had no excuse and neither did the Beast. How dare she?! I snatched up my SuperSoaker, marched out the door and caught them in my crosshairs just as they were at my roomate's car. Very carefully, so as not to get too much water on my roommate, who I liked, I aimed an arc of water from the soaker over his head and onto the Beast's. Slowly she turned, shock, fury and general unsavoriness competing for floorspace in her eyes. I continued spraying her until my air tank was spent, then fled into the house like a coward and locked the door behind me before the well-moistened Beast could leap and rend me to shreds. I'd been wanting to do something like that to her for months. Was it mature of me? Hell no. Was I in dutch with my roommate for a while? Not too long and I did apologize to him for mistreating one of his guests. Did I actually regret it? Not one whit. Did my roommate eventually kick that bitch to the curb and go on to marry one of the best possible women on the planet? Yes, he did! And whether it's true or not, I'd like to think my grand defeat of the terrible Beast had something to do with it.
48) WET PUSSY TRIPLE FEATURE
This, however, is the chronicle of a cat torment as well as a story of more indiscriminate pissing. Shortly after I moved out of the house listed in the previous cat game, I found myself living back at my dad's house. At almost the same time, his new bride, my stepmother, moved into the house as well. My sister was already there. Each of us had a cat and each of our cats was used to being the Alpha Kitty in their respective abodes prior to being thrown together. These cats were also all siblings, making the struggle for family power all the more volatile, leading them to launch Cat Piss War `94. Territory, according to the cats, must be secured and well-marked and anyone else's piss markings must be covered up. This was a war that eventually ruined all the carpet and lead to a massive and expensive renovation of the floors. For a while these cats developed a passion for pissing on the front door. This is bad enough, but it was also near my room and was my primary entrance to the house and I was the guy always trodding through it barefoot. I decided to put a stop to it. The trouble was, I couldn't exactly punish the cats for pissing on the door if I didn't catch them doing it. The piss could always be blamed on another cat. Then, one night while typing away on my computer, I heard the distinct sound of urine flowing against a wooden door. Popping up from my desk, I spied my cat Winston, letting fly on the door, still in mid-stream. I roared triumphantly and snatched her up. I then carted her to the bathroom where I ran her body under the bathtub tap, soaking her thoroughly before marching back to hurl her out the door and into the winter cold. (And before you whine and fire up your WebTV e-mail, it's Mississippi. It ain't THAT cold.) When I reached the door, though, who who should I spy pissing on it but my sister's cat Cleo. Again, I roared with rage, snatching Cleo up, not even pausing to dump Winston out the door, but dragging both of them to the bathtub for a good soaking. Two sopping cats in hand, I was headed to hurl them into the cold again when who should I see pissing over the already twice-pissed door but Lucien, my step-mother's cat. I then had to hurl the first two cats into the cold and then hunt down Lucien and give him the same treatment. Soon after this, all the cats were put on Valium to make them more docile and less apt to urinary impressions of a lawn sprinkler.