Clandestine Cat Cabals and Cults

CLANDESTINE CAT CABALS AND CULTS

Has your cat ever mysteriously disappeared, and reappeared later?

Does your cat ever seem distracted? Does she ever fail to come when you call?

Does your cat ever refuse food?

Does your cat ever appear to sleep for long periods of time, even when she has not been exercising?

These are all signs that your cat may be colluding with secret societies. Recent investigations have revealed a widespread network of feline organizations, of which the following are just the tip of the miceberg.

FBI: THE FELINE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Today’s FBI is modeled after the original FBI, which was a creation of the Meowng Dynasty. When a cat enrolls in today’s FBI, it learns the investigative processes its ancient forecats used in the original Bureau, though that actual Bureau no longer exists.

The FBI has always had only one code: “Once a mewmber, always a mewmber.” To determine if your cat is in the FBI, it is essential to become familiar with the FBI’s training regimen, within the context of the original model.

The original Bureau was a vast labyrinth containing countless Moveable Panels, Trap Doors, False Bottoms, and Sock Enclaves. Knowing the uses to which all of these physical artifices were put may help you unravel the riddle of whether a cat has a secret life.

Moveable Panels

The Bureau considered an investigation into whether or not a panel could move crucial to the practice of the fixed stare. The ability to stare at anything indefinitely without changing expression gave cats advantages both in predation and in establishing dominance over human slaves. Cats in the early Bureau prided themselves on being able to stare at a panel either until it moved, or they fell asleep.

If your cat ever contemplates a door for any length of time, then when you open it, it contemplates the open door without changing its expression, it’s likely that your cat is in the FBI. 

On the other paw, cats with high Investigative Quotients (IQs) could sometimes tell if a panel had the capacity to move just by glancing at it. (High IQs can be achieved by any cat simply by continuing the practice of Catcraft.) This explains why you will seldom see a cat staring fixedly at a wall.

When a panel that a cat was investigating moved, the cat could be counted on to consider the merits of passing through the opening. A great deal of quality investigative time was expended on determining whether it was useful to explore reality on the far side of the panel.

Once this determination was made, cats had to be alert to the possibility of the panel sliding closed behind them. FBI rookies sometimes found themselves on the wrong side of a panel that had slid back into place. Although many elements of the FBI were deliberately left to chance, stranding rookies was seen to serve no useful purpose. This was where False Bottoms came in.

False Bottoms

Cats who investigated the far side of a Moveable Panel quickly discovered that this side had a False Bottom. The purpose of the False Bottom was to encourage cats to question everything. When the floor itself was subject, suddenly, to falling down, it made an impression. The lesson a cat learned from this was that the fundamental nature of reality was apt to revise itself at any time.

Discovering a False Bottom became the leading cause of what was colloquially known as Rudely Awakened Thought Syndrome (RATS). Symptoms of RATS, which is pervasive among cats in the postmodern FBI, include Sudden Self-Ejections (SSEs), and Sudden Unanticipated Vanishings (SUVs).

If your cat ever makes a sudden move for no obvious reason, odds are that it suspects that the nature of reality is due for a sudden change. Or, if your cat ever fails to respond to what you feel is a perfectly sensible suggestion, no doubt it has already considered and rejected several unwelcome outcomes that have not occurred to you. Both of these behaviors are clear signs that your cat is in the FBI.

Trap Doors

Trap Doors differed from Moveable Panels and False Bottoms in that they were interactive. There was no trap door in the original Bureau so designed as to prevent a cat from untrapping itself. Reversible trapping mechanisms prompted cats to figure out how they worked. This training led to an attention to detail and a fascination with the fundamental elements of gadgets, especially with those that are impossible to reassemble without help from the Army Corp of Engineers.

If your cat ever seems to be obsessed with small moveable items, or spends any noticeable amount of time deconstructing something, this points to membership in the FBI.

Sock Enclaves

The original Bureau was well provided with nooks and cubbyholes well stockinged with socks and sweaters of wool, silk and mousefur that could use an overlay of hair. These Sock Enclaves, as they were called, provided places in which cats could rest, and digest what they had either learned or eaten.

The continuing role played by Sock Enclaves within the FBI tradition reveals to the cat provisioner that her companion is a multi-faceted creature, with both a fascination with complexity and a delight in simplicity. If your cat ever seeks out a drawer, closet, or clothes dryer, there is little doubt that it’s a lifetime member of the FBI.

FCC: THE FOND OF CATNIP COOPERATIVE

The mystical connection between cats and catnip was recorded as early as twelve million B.C. Carbon-dated cave paintings discovered in Mew Zealand depict cats sitting in the lotus position clutching sprigs of catnip, their half-closed eyes reflecting a state of trance.

No one knows for certain what the attraction is; however, cats seen to be hovering several feet off the ground in the vicinity of catnip may be a clue. Other unusual feline behavior in its proximity includes snuggling up to pit bulls, letting parakeets ride on their heads, and saying “Me-WOW.”

Throughout history, the bond between cats and catnip has sprouted a plethora of clubs and societies. Eventually, all of them fell under the umbrella of the FCC. Since then, all cats with or without olfactory capability have been guaranteed lifetime membership.

An incident in the 9th century established the universality of the FCC, after Sniffless, a cat who had lost his sense of smell after an unfortunate encounter with a bumblebee, had his membership revoked. Sniffless successfully fought his expulsion by leaping from the top of the Sphinx with a sprig of catnip in his teeth. During his descent, he zoomed around the Sphinx three times, finally coming to rest on one of its paws without a scratch, except for the one he gave himself behind his ear. Ever since then, any animal that meows has been accepted in the FCC.

This generous policy has, when they pressed their rights to join in Coop activities by virtue of their mimicry, resulted in the sudden disappearance of many a family parrot. (Family cats are quick, after these occurrences, to look innocent.)

FCC activities today include everything from gatherings of a few cats who inhale catnip together and then go on “sprees” around the neighborhood, to large gatherings of cats romping in rooms filled with the scent of catnip.

Catnip is not without its controversies among our less enlightened animal species. Some cast a dubious eye when cats, after sniffing “nip,” have been seen meowing, and, less frequently, hissing at what appears to human observers as thin air. In fact, from prehistoric times, catnip has been prized by cats for its intoxicating aroma, its tendency to induce a consciousness-heightening trance, its improvement of telepathic function, and its ability to make cats invisible to dogs.

People who have been adopted by cats are often unaware of these properties of catnip and, hence, the value of catnip to cats. Left to them to be dispensed, catnip is so done sparingly if at all. For this reason, cats the world over turn to their fellow quadrupeds, few of whom are bold enough to defy the requests of the natural world’s most effective terminator. Cats use their acknowledged prowess in this field to see that their catnip needs are satisfied.

Land animals used to transport catnip include antelopes, bats, crickets, donkeys, elephants, foxes, greyhounds, hippos, jackrabbits, kangaroos, llamas, manatees, newts, owls, parrots, snakes, rhinos, turtles, vultures, woodpeckers, yaks and zebras.

Over sea, the albatross-pelican connection is the catnip purveyance preferred by most coastal FCC colonies. So much catnip has arrived on American shores via the pelican’s pouch that in the late 1990s, the human INS made all-out effort to require pelicans to go through Customs. Pelicans responded by using unacCustomed points of debarkation.

It is rare for a cat in the U.S. to have to venture farther than the sidewalk to acquire a fresh supply of “herb.” For something as simple as a tip-off as to when and where Fancy Feast will next be served, a cat can obtain a catnip supply that lasts several days. This is important for humans to know, because many of the behaviors cats engage in which prove baffling to us can be attributed to the effects of catnip. These include:

*Staring.

*Rolling over.

*Batting at the air.

*Racing across an open space.

*Flipping in place at a 90 degree angle.

*Jumping suddenly to a lower elevation.

*Jumping suddenly to a higher elevation.

If the cat you are providing for does any of these things, even frequently, now you may know why. Still unexplained is why cats also do these things when they’ve never had any catnip at all.

FEMA:FELINE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

A national nonprofit dedicated to compensating cats for the activities of humans who are in denial of the superiority of the feline species. Ironically, such humans tend to be consciousness-challenged, and unable to grasp fundamental facts. When someone of this ilk adopts a cat, it is like adding a fragrant and soothing oil elixir to dishwater. Very quickly, such humans will start telling cats what to do, and often become irate when ignored. Intervention may be called for. However, most humans rarely are willing to take the obedience classes necessary to make them more manageable. 

Sometimes cats have no choice but to strike out on their own. FEMA steps in to assist these cats in locating established colonies, and finding sentient humans to feed them and provide them with shelter.

FLA: FELINE LIBERATION ARMY

A secret society of insurgent cats dedicated to overthrowing the system of forced relocation, imprisonment, and state-sanctioned reincarnation to which they can at any time be subject. Its activities range from black initiates walking in front of superstitious humans to showing opossums, skunks and raccoons where human food can be found after dark. The FLA’s political arm, Shin Sprayin, seeks to educate humans on the evils of breeding (human, that is), while feral cat colonies seek out humans with IQs to assist them in educating those less endowed in the perils of human overpopulation. The FLA turns away no quadruped who seeks its help, and has been known to team up with rats to scare the bejeezus out of humans who don’t know they’re unfit to lick a cat’s paws.

NFL: NATIONAL FELINE LEAGUE

A private organization of cats dedicated to the improvement of the health and well being of all cats regardless of pace, breed or color. The NFL has a number of divisions, including Mewtrition, Mousing, and Reproductive Services. Its delecats hold elicktions to vote for catidates whom they believe will best represent the cats in their territoys.

FU: FELINE UNIVERSITY

Ever wonder why your cat spends so much time “sleeping”? How much sense does it make, after all, for the most advanced mind in the Milky Way to let its capacious capacity for knowledge idle away hours? This may come as a surprise to some, but, in fact, cats never sleep. When they appear to be dozing, they are actually taking courses telepathically at Feline University. If your cat sometimes seems hard to rouse, it’s because you provide little in the way of competing insights to the subject matter she is involved with at the time. The following list of courses has been excerpted from The Feline University Course Catalog.

Canine Studies

How to Make a Dog Get Lost in One Easy Lesson

Cathletics

Curtain Ascension

Chandelier Swinging

Keyboard Peregrinating

Sleeping Upside Down

Walking On Water

Walking Over Water

Cosmic Consciousness

Inner Spaces: Boxes, bags and sock drawers

Outer Spaces: Trees, Rooftops, and Over the Fence

Crafts

Unknitting

Flower Disarrangement

Basket Unweaving

Sofa Unstuffing

Butterfly Collecting

Culinary Arts and Wildlife Cuisine

Songbirds

Pet Birds

Wild Rodents

Pet Rodents

Reptiles and Amphibians

Butterflies and Moths

Salmon Appreciation

Fine Art

Abstract Expressionism Using Anything

Zen Blinking at Human Models

Kibble on a Broad Pallet

Paw Drawings on Glass

Claw Etchings on Skin

Geography

Scratching to Go Out

Scratching to Go In

Scratching to Go Neither In Nor Out

Scratching to Go Halfway In and Halfway Out

Zen Geography: the Cat as Center of the Universe 

Health Sciences

Meowcoholics Anonymous

Deep Fur Sanitization

Human Studies

Human Psychology 1

Obedience Training

Interpreting Human Speech Patterns

Timing the Meow to Make it Appear Arbitrary (then Observing the Effects)

Martial Arts

Eyecato

Kung Food

Chewjitsu

Mewsic

Spontaneous Aleatoric Screeching

Tibetan Polyrhythmic Purring

Mewsic of the Spheres (with an Emphasis in Ping Pong Balls)

Natural Resources

Deep Decology

Occult Studies

Seeing Without Being Seen

Spontaneous Disappearance

Precognition: Predicting Human Behavior

The Interpretation of Dreams

Advanced Furtivity

Political Science

Topics in Colonization

Rooftop Occupation

Feline Rights

Water Torture

Shelters: The Big Lie

Civil Disobedience: the Many Uses of the Meow

Property Management

How to Evict the Family Dog

Removing the Squawk from the Family Bird

Removing the Squeak from the Housemouse

Psychology

Fear of Failing to Fall

Living with Raccoons

Outwaiting Mice

Theoretical Physics

Chaos Theory

String Theory

Quantum Leaps

Sock Holes

Creative Writing

Meowmoires

OMB: OFFICE OF MICE AND BUDGIES

Of all human companions, cats are probably the slowest to despair. This is why, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to suggest the futility of doing it, cats will continue to deposit dead mice and birds at the feet of their human caretakers in 

hopes that understanding will blossom. But humans just don’t get it. They actually believe that these dead rodents and birds are gifts, or even tributes.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

They are admonitions. What the cat is telling you is, “More, please!” In short, you’ve run out of rodents or birds. Appearances of mouse or bird carcasses in the wake of your cat are requests for a replenishment. If the request is unheeded, the cat will contact her neighborhood chapter of the OMB. Its volunteers spring into action, chasing local pockets of bird and rodent life to the understocked territory. “Mice” and “budgies” are understood to include any bite-sized creature which can fit after an amputation or two neatly into the tummy of a tabby.

It is only when entire communities have been emptied of their bird and rodent life that regional OMB chapters become involved. The herding of “mice and budgies” from an affluent to a needy community is actually not accomplished by cats, but by border collies (these are dogs) who have been trained by cats for this service. Most border collies relish these opportunities to use their Dog-given talents, as they dwarf in scale and adventuresomeness most herding options provided by humans.

If your border collie does not appear ever to leave your side, even in the middle of the night, don’t be fooled. At some point in the past, whether by the family cat or by a stranger, your dog has been trained. Heeding the call is usually only a matter of time.