Hijinx’s Guide to Manipulating Mama

Greetings.  As my mama’s golden man, I feel like it’s my job to provide a thorough guide to how to manipulate your own mama.  My human doesn’t always realize I’m doing it, and that’s how it should be.  Properly following these rules will ensure more yummies and cans than you can imagine.

1.  The Art of the Meow.  Some of you might be content by simply saying, “Meow,” when you desire food or other nom noms.  This is incorrect.  A simple meow is cute.  Cute often inspires a head pat or a kiss, which, while enjoyable, is totally not what we want.  Now I admit to having an advantage in this category, being part Siamese, but you too can master the absolute aggravation that is the incessant Siam Mrar.

The Siam Mrar is the best possible method for making your human do anything next to moving actual mountains to make you shut up.  This can not only result in meaty noms, but you might even get can and get locked in the spare room with a box and water bowl.  Notice I didn’t mention the other kittehs.  Just solitary alone time with yummies and a futon.  Heaven.

To properly use the Siam Mrar, you must open your mouth as wide as you possibly can, pull strength from deep inside your belleh, and proceed into staccato mrars followed by the longest squall in the history of kitteh.  Like this:  “Mrar mrar mrar mrar mrar mrar mraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”  Rinse and repeat.  Over and over and over again.  If you can add a wavy note to the long mrar, you sound obnoxious and pitiful.  This might get you all of the things mentioned above AND a head rub.  The best of everything.

2.  The “Oh my god, shut the hell up already” Chorus Meow.  For this one, you need a partner in crime.  I have Roxy, who has the loudest high pitched meow of any cat ever.  But sometimes she throws a throaty, Melissa Etheridge-like rasp into it.  Very effective.  Her method is to open her mouth big and emit this squealing annoyance at full volume.  She never takes a breath:  “Meowmewmememememememow-myamowmamowmowmowwwww.” Combine this with the Siam Mrar and your human will kill someone to get you to be quiet.

3.  For kittehs wanting to keep the human in a good mood.  Sometimes you don’t want mommy mad.  Maybe you want noms and loves.  This is when you find your own Stormer kitteh.  Stormer never meows, because Roxy and I have it covered.  This is why using her in sparse amounts is so darn effective.  Fully institute number two, then send in Stormer to sit on the floor by the food bowl, ask her to look up at mama pitifully, and then simply say, in her cutest kitten voice, “Mew?”  The human will go from full on cursing rant to melted puddle of goo in about a second flat.  This often gets us our can and some Greenies.  Awesome.

4.  Ensuring love anytime of day.  Sometimes mama likes to sleep.  I know!  Can you imagine sleeping when there’s a perfectly good kitteh to pet?  And I’m sorry, but three in the morning is when I desire pets the most.  If your human insists on sleeping, I have found you can wake her up by putting your nose about an inch from her face and staring directly at her left eye for, oh, about an hour.  Eventually she will wake up and be so startled she can’t go back to sleep.  When she says, “Damn it Jinky,” you put on your most pathetic expression and slowly look down and to the left.  As if you’ve been damaged for life.  I find this often gets me head rubs, belly rubs and a hug.  Humans aren’t thinking when they’re completely exhausted.

5.  How to Ensure a Clean Litter Box.  Mama has three cats.  Usually, she can scoop out the boxes every two to three days because we each have our own options.  But sometimes we all wish to use only one box and we can fill that thing up fast.  If this happens while she’s at work, you can make sure she notices by calmly dragging a piece of poop out onto the carpet.  It works every single time.  She’ll lecture you on using all the boxes, but it does no good.  Now is a good time to switch to number three again.

Equally effective is something I learned from my buddy Buster – instead of dragging poop out, drag an item of mama’s clothing in.  Do that and she’ll appreciate your other manipulations, because at least they don’t smell like poop.

I’m Hijinx, and this has been my guide to manipulating the mama.

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An addendum:  On rare occasions, none of the above will work.  Perhaps mama is in a bad mood or sad or simply busy.  So when all else fails we’ve found the best thing to do is completely incapacitate her.  This is easier than it sounds.  My job is to weave back and forth directly in front of her feet while she walks.  Roxy then comes in from the side and as mom sidesteps me, Roxy stops dead still right in her path.  If done correctly, your human will do a ballet-style pirouette in mid air to avoid stepping on kitteh tail (to avoid the shriek that would follow) and crash face first on the floor.

If you’re lucky, she’ll be bed-ridden and need help for a while.  As Stormer has learned from her aunt Sheri, aunts and uncles that come to help out not only never discipline the kittehs, but they’re complete pushovers as well.  But again, use this only when absolutely necessary.  We do still love the mama after all.