The Cat's Meow...

When playing cards at my best friend's house last weekend we had one of those "you had to be there" funny moments. I know you're thinking of one of your own, right now. So you know when you try to tell the story to others it completely loses all it's character and you might as well have told the story in Latin because no one understood what was so funny about it anyway! So now you're totally wondering where I am going with this post if I already know the outcome of trying to relay to all of you how funny the moment was. So... I won't try to recreate the moment but I do have to share some of what was the source of our laughing til we cried.

My friend's grandmother, in an attempt to make some kind of connection with her great granddaughters wanted to give them some books that she thought they might enjoy. Now you never know what type of books those could turn out to be. Sometimes they are old religious books that meant something to their lives, or maybe books from the childhood of your parents or grandparents. But no matter what they are they most definitely will prove how good of a parent you are. Can your children be gracious when faced with the challenge of accepting the book even when it happens to be this one:

This book was published in 1964 and is translated from the feline. This is not an ordinary how to train your cat book this is a cat's version on how to train your person. I really think that some suppressed psycho-analytical type must have enjoyed the thrill of writing this book. A great example is found in Chapter 11--People.

Men

In dealing with the man of the house, it is fortunate that by and large the species suffers from a basic insecurity and is plagued, particularly in family matters, with an ambivalence that can be most usefully exploited.

Women

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT apply the same methods and ploys to softening up the woman of the house as you do to buttering up the man. They won't work for the simple reason that she has probably used some of them herself on the same male....Do not underestimate them, for they area for more clever, certainly, than the males they have captured and taken over.

Children

By and large children are a nuisance, although I should say they come under the heading of a mixed blessing, and where children are concerned you will have to decide for yourselves whether the price is worth while.

The Bachelor

I have not much to say to you on the subject of bachelors...To begin with, there are not all that many about, and the fact is that if a man has reached the age of fifty without being able to attract some woman or another into a successful partnership with him, there is something the matter with him and he might very well not be right material for living with a cat.

158 pages of this. The whole book is written in the cat's voice. The book also contains some minor cursing and descriptions of boy parts of the cat all of which had been lovingly blacked out by either the original giver of the book or by my friend's grandmother. That has yet to be determined. I recommend that if you would enjoy that premise of training your person with the tricks of pet training that you might enjoy the movie If A Man Answers --at least it was meant to be a comedy and was released about the same year so you still get the antiquated interpersonal skills that are enjoyed with this book.

Chantel worries about her new marriage to photographer Eugene failing so she decides to take her mother's advice and manipulate him. First, her mother gives her a book that will solve all her problems about how to treat a husband - namely a book on how to train dogs. Then, her mother gives her a second trick, an imaginary boyfriend who used to come in handy during her own marriage to Chantel's father. However, if Chantel's mother made this man up, what is she going to do when Eugene brings him home for dinner one night? Written by MaxVaughn