Easy As 1, 2, 3

I shoulda' mentioned this weeks ago but got a little distracted by other stuff. Meryl Yourish has a new kitten, aptly named Tig3, who's creatin' quite a stir in her house. (Personally I can't figure out why humans go ga-ga over the little buggers 'cause they're nothin' more than a menace underfoot, but I'm biased.)

Anyway, bein' young 'n all, Tig3 could probably use some advice, 'specially 'bout how to deal with staircases, when he finally gets to try 'em out, that is. The proper way—the handed-down-from-the-terrier-oldsters way—is to avoid climbin' stairs at all (particularly uncarpeted stairs), as long as you can. If ya' run the con just right, it could be weeks, 'tho I doubt your Human Female is quite as gullible as our Silly Human Female.

It's basically a three step process.

1. Follow your human to the bottom of the stairs, put one paw on the lowest step and make a few tries at haulin' yourself up. (Do not, under any circumstances, actually haul your furry little butt onto that first step.)
2. Yowl piteously—or, in your case, loudly. Try again. Fail again. Repeat as necessary until...
3. Human female comes back downstairs, picks you up, and carries you up the steps.

I tell ya', Tig3, we rode up (and sometimes down) like royalty for weeks. In fact, if one of my dim-witted siblings hadn't tried the routine on AHM (who's smarter than your average human) we could have kept it going' for at least another month. But AHM just told him to knock it off and get upstairs. When Silly Human Female rushed down the hall sayin' we were too little to walk up the stairs, AHM almost fell down the steps laughin'. See, we'd been followin' AHM up and down the whole time.

Learn from our mistakes, kid.

posted by Harrison at 10:06 PM