My human will never let me eat his pet hamster, and I
am at peace with that.

I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the
aquarium.

I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs and then
come home and throw them up so the humans can see that
I’m getting plenty of roughage.

I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall
in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat
litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my
fur.)

I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for
late-night snacks.

We will not play “Herd of Thundering Wildebeests
Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti” over
any human’s bed while she’s trying to sleep.

I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds
outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the
window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will
not get up and do the same thing again.

I will not assume the patio door is open when I race
outside to chase leaves.

I will not stick my paw into any container to see if
there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and
scratch when my human has to shave me to get the
rubber cement out of my fur.

If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.

When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the
house. It is not necessary to check every door.

I will not play “dead cat on the stairs” while people
are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else
one of these days, it will really come true.

When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the
air and attempt to catch them.

I will not swat my human’s head repeatedly when he is
on the family room floor trying to do sit-ups.

When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms
are *not* a hammock.

Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my
lovely tail.

I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for
no reason after my human has watched a horror movie.

I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down
the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has
watched the X-Files.

I will not drag dirty socks onto the bed at night and
then yell at the top of my lungs so that my human can
admire my “kill.”

I will not perch on my human’s chest in the middle of
the night and stare until he wakes up.

I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is
writing important adagfsg gdjag ;ln.

If I must claw my human, I will not do it in such a
way that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.

If I must give a present to my human guests, my toy
mouse is much more socially acceptable than a big live
bug, even if it isn’t as tasty.