(my thanks to Network News' magazine who reprinted this after Joy Healey unearthed it via e-mail)
1. DOORS: Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get door opened, stand on hind legs and hammer with forepaw. Once door is opened, it is not necessary to use it. After you have ordered an "outside" door opened, stand halfway in and out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather, rain, snow, or mosquito season. Swinging doors are to be avoided at all costs.
2. SICKNESS: If you have to throw up, get to a chair quickly. If you cannot manage in time, get to an oriental rug. If there is no Oriental rug, shag is good. When throwing up on the carpet, make sure you back up so that it is as long as the human's bare foot.
3. BATHROOMS: Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything - just sit and stare.
4. HAMPERING: If one of your humans is engaged in some close activity and the other is idle, stay with the busy one. This is called "helping", otherwise known as "hampering". The following are the rules for hampering:
a. When supervising cooking, sit just behind the left heel of the cook. You cannot be seen and thereby stand a better chance of being stepped on and then picked up and comforted.
b. For book readers, get in close under the chin, between eyes and book, unless you lie across the book itself.
c. For knitting projects or paperwork, lie on the work in the most appropriate manner so as to obscure as much of the work as possible, or at least the most important part. Pretend to doze, but every so often reach out and slap the pencil or knitting needles. The worker may try to distract you: ignore it.
d. Remember, the aim is to hamper work. Embroidery and needlepoint projects make great hammocks in spite of what the humans may tell you.
e. For people paying bills (monthly activity) or working on income taxes or Christmas cards (yearly activity), keep in mind the aim - to hamper! First, sit on the paper being worked on. When dislodged, watch sadly from the side of the table. When activity proceeds nicely, roll around on the papers, scattering them to the best of your ability. After being removed for the second time, push pens, pencils and erasers off the table on at a time.
f. When a human is holding the newspaper in front of him/her, be sure to jump on the back of the paper. They love to jump too.
g. If you human is a computer or Internet junkie, you can be of great assistance by helping them with the buttons on the keyboard, or better still, with the mouse - after all, mice are a cat's speciality, not a human's.
5. WALKING: As often as possible, dart quickly and as close as possible in front of the human, especially on stairs, when they have something in their arms, in the dark, and when they first get up in the morning. This will help their co-ordination skills.
6. BEDTIME: Always sleep on the human at night so s/he cannot move around. At some time in the early hours, or just as dawn arrives, it's helpful to give the human/s an alarm call by walking on their face and letting them know that you need the door opened - urgently.
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