Humans and Time, by Sam

Meow,

I'm wondering if any of you out there have two-leg... OKAY, Mom
HUMAN... if any of you have HUMANS who have trouble telling time. Our
resident human doesn't seem to understand the concept of time.

In my experience, while Mom and I can tell what time it is, Steve the
human can't. We know all the important times, time to eat, play time,
bedtime, etc... Steve seems to be clueless. Some mornings when I go in
to wake up Steve and let him know it's time for breakfast, he just
looks at the box that glows in the dark and says it's not time to get
up. Just what does that box have to do with anything. I don't care
what the box says, all I care about is that it's time to eat. Besides,
the box never gets up, it just sits there, sometimes making a beeping
noise. Like I said, I can tell time even if the two... um Human...
can't.

Momma is teaching me how to get the message across, though. Her
favorite method is to crawl under the covers and snuggle up with the
human and purr real loud. Her method works pretty well, but sometimes
it takes too long I go for a more direct approach. If I'm hungry and
it seems like Momma's approach is taking too long, I've found that if
I pounce on his feet and claw his toes I can get his attention.

A note of caution for any of you out there who might think of using my
method: it's seems that it's easy to hurt humans. If I just use a
little bit of claw, Steve makes sounds like he's being hurt. When I
was younger I used to use my claws all the time, but I've learned that
it's easy to make your human bleed. It might be some kind of weird
medical condition that Steve has, he hardly has any fur except on his
head.

Here's another helpful hint. When it's playtime and your human is just
sitting in front of the computer, here are some useful methods of
letting the human know it's time to play. Sometimes the subtle
approach works. Take a toy and drop it on his foot. You may have to
drop it several times to get the human's attention. If he still
doesn't get the message, jump up on the desk and stand in front of the
little TV. This always gets a reaction, although sometimes not the one
you want. Sometimes your human will think it's time to pet, like I
said human's don't really understand time. If the human starts to pet
you, just jump back onto the desk. Maybe the human will realise his
mistake an get the correct messages. If he picks you up, puts you on
the floor and still doesn't realize it's time to play, go on to step
three. For step three, reach up and put your paws around his arms as
he reaches for the keyboard.

This almost always works, but sometimes you have to bring out the big
guns. If you still can't get the human to realize it's playtime, reach
up and CAREFULLY poke him in the side with a claw. This always get
Steve's attention. He may cry and try to act like he's hurt, but I
always get his full attention. After he gets over being poked he'll
notice the toys at his feet and realizes it's time to play.

More later,
Sammy