I'm working at an ice cream truck parked near a busy beach promenade. I'm serving a steady line of customers on a hot day when a woman marches up to the window, glaring.
Customer: "Are you aware that your jingle is far too loud? I could hear it from three blocks away while I was meditating!"
I'm working at a kayak rental hut by a quiet lake. A family is picking up their rental gear. The dad looks over the waiver form.
Dad: "Why do we have to sign all this? We’re just paddling. It’s not like we’re cliff diving."
There's truly something pawsome about adopting a stray cat into your life. It's like fate's whiskered paw has gently nudged them right to your doorstep. These scruffy little furballs might arrive with a bit of mystery and a whole lot of charm, but once they curl up in your lap, they fill your home with endless purrs and unconditional love. When a stray cat decides to paw their way into your heart, it's a clear sign you're their purrfect furever human.
Adopting a stray is more than just adding a furry friend It's about giving a once-lost kitty a second chance to live their best nine lives. These clever street-smart kittens repay your kindness with head bonks, gentle kneading, and snuggly cuddles. They might start off as shy shadow-pouncers, but with patience and lots of chin scratches, they bloom into confident cuddlebugs.
Every soft purr and slow blink says, "thank meow." Taking in a stray opens your heart to a joy that's truly furever. When a stray picks you, it's not just adoption. It's destiny wrapped in a warm, whiskered hug.
I'm working a booth at a pop-up art fair selling handmade ceramic tiles with painted quotes and designs. A fairgoer walks over and picks one up.
Customer: "This is cute, but can you do it in white marble instead?"
Me: "No, sorry, these are all handmade from clay, each one is fired and glazed in our little workshop."
This cat tale is full of claws-out drama. A kindhearted person tried to do the right thing by giving a sweet, abandoned tuxedo kitty a safe and loving forever home. The cat showed up daily for food, pets, and naps on the porch, clearly hoping for comfort and care.
Enter the real catastrophe: the neighbor. She openly admits the cat is not really hers and even said she tried bringing him inside but it did not work out with her 18 other cats. Still, she refuses to let anyone else give the cat a better life. She insists the cat wants to stay free, as if he told her himself. To make things stranger, she even suggested calling a cat psychic to ask the cat what he wants.
The person trying to adopt the cat pointed out the dangers of life outdoors, but the neighbor would not budge. Her demands for constant updates and threats to take the cat back left the situation stuck. Now the cat still sleeps on the porch, and this would be pawrent is left heartbroken, wondering how caring could be met with so much resistance.
Coworker #1: "[My Name], do you think [Coworker #2] is sexy?"
My eyes dart between [Coworker #1] and [Coworker #2] in a quick panic.
Me: "Uh… this feels like a trap."
Coworker #1: "It's not! I'm just asking an honest question!"
For our 25th anniversary, Krissy and I were planning to go to Iceland and spend a week or so there, getting to know the country. Then the pandemic happened and we ended up spending the anniversary at home. Fine, we would just reschedule Iceland for our 30th anniversary. But then I was invited to do a convention in Iceland last year, and we tacked on an extra five days after the convention to do all the things we planned for our 25th anniversary. This left our 30th anniversary suddenly unscheduled.
Fortunately, I had a backup: I had always wanted to visit Venice, not just for Venice itself, but also, goofily, for the fact there is a Church of the Scalzi there, and a Scalzi Bridge, and, heck, why not, even a Scalzi restaurant. Honestly, how could I not go? Krissy indulged me, and on the week of our anniversary, off we went.
We spent a full week in Venice, which appeared to surprise the people there when we mentioned the fact to them. Apparently Venice is usually a couple-days stop at most, tourists grimly marching themselves from the Doge’s palace to the obligatory gondola ride to wherever else they went before they were hustled back onto a bus or cruise ship and sent off to whatever the next destination was. The fact we were in town for a whole week impressed the locals. They seemed to appreciate that we wanted to take in the city at a leisurely pace.
Which is what we did! We did have two days where we had a private guide to give us a walking tour of the city (including stops at the aforementioned Doge’s palace, St. Mark’s basilica and the Scalzi church) and to take us over to Murano to watch glass being blown. And of course we rode in a gondola, because, hey, we were in fact tourists, and not afraid to do touristy things. But most of the days there we woke up late, wandered around the city and maybe took in a museum or church, and then ate at a bunch of restaurants and hung out in a bunch of bars, mostly on the water, and watched the city go by in various boats. Venice, as it turns out, is a lovely city to just be in. Krissy and I mostly did a lot of not much, and it was pretty great.
Mind you, Venice is one of the most overtouristed cities in the world, and as a visitor you can certainly feel that, especially on the weekends, in the space between the Rialto Bridge and the Piazza San Marco. It’s Disneyland-level crowded there. I can’t complain overmuch about that fact without being a full-blown hypocrite, but we did understand that our role in town was to drop a lot of money into the local economy in order to balance out our presence. We were happy to do that, and, you know, to be respectful of the people who were helping to give us a delightful vacation. By and large the Venetians were perfectly nice, did not seem to dislike us merely for being Americans, and in any event we got out of town before Jeff Bezos could show up and make everyone genuinely angry. No one blamed us for Jeff Bezos, either.
One of the things I personally genuinely enjoyed about Venice was just how utterly unlike anywhere in the United States. Yes, I know there are places in the US where they have canals; heck, the Venice in California was once meant to have them all over the place. But it’s not only about the canals. It’s about the fact that no matter what street you’re going down, what bridge you’re crossing or what side canal you’re looking down into, parts of everything you’re looking at have been there longer than the US has been a country, and none of it accommodates anything that the US would require. There are no cars in Venice, no Vespas, not even any bikes. If you’re going anywhere, you’re walking or going by boat. It’s very weird to have no road noise anywhere. You don’t realize how much you get used that noise, even in a rural area like the one I live in, until you go some place without it. I mean, there are boats with engines. The sounds of internal combustion are not entirely gone. But it’s dramatically reduced.
As mentioned, we stayed in Venice for a week, which I think is probably the right amount of time to be in the city. We didn’t see everything it had to offer, but then we weren’t trying to; if and when we go back there will still be new things to explore. But I did get to check off visiting the Scalzi Bridge, Church and restaurant, and the last of these was where Krissy and I had our actual 30th anniversary dinner. It’s was pretty good. I did not get a discount because of my last name. Alas. Here’s picture of the interior of the Church of the Scalzi:
Slightly more ornate than the one in Bradford, Ohio, I admit. But in defense of the one in Ohio, it’s much easier to dust.
Would I recommend Venice to others? Definitely. Spend more than a couple of days. Be respectful. Spend a decent amount of money. Have an Aperol Spritz. If you’re from the US, enjoy the fact there is nothing like it in the American experience. Maybe avoid the Rialto Bridge on the weekend. And there you have it: an excellent Venetian vacation. I hope you’ll enjoy yours as much as we enjoyed ours.
Give a cat a sunny patch on the floor, and you'll witness pure bliss. Those lazy stretches, slow blinks, and satisfied purrs say it all. Whether it's a warm spot on the floor or a sunny windowsill throne, they'll plop down and soak up those golden rays like tiny, furry solar panels.
There's nothing quite like watching a cat stretch out in the summer sun, toes wiggling as if they're sipping up pure sunshine juice. It's their favorite way to chill and recharge because all that prowling and pouncing takes serious energy! Sunbeams are basically their VIP spa lounge. It's the purrfect spot to lounge, nap, and dream up their next great adventure.
Those blissful, half-closed eyes mean your kitty is soaking up every ray of sunshine for pure, pawsitively perfect relaxation. So when your furry friend claims that sunny spot, don't disturb their sunshine session. Summer's here, and it's officially the prime time for cat naps and cozy cat days!
Me: "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?"
Driver: "Uh…"
He looks down at the gauges on his car, which draws my attention to them as well. The speedometer needle is spinning around wildly in a battle with the RPM gauge.
Driver: "Uh… o-over fifty-five?"
A guy skips the line and reaches for the door.
Me: "Oh, heads up, we can only allow five people at a time in, and we do have a line!"
Customer: "Oh, I’m just here to look."
Me: "…there’s still a line."
Our manager has just come back from a long and big meeting with all the senior directors.
Coworker #1: "So? What did the big bosses want?"
Office Manager: *Deep sigh.* "The usual bull-s***. A productivity boost with no budget, no new hires, and no overtime."
Life, it is a big thing to deal with 24/7, which even on the best of days can quite easily turn into overthinking. After all, how are you meant to keep up with the Kardashians, while purchasing the latest trends, while scrolling cat memes and posting on social media, while living the life you claim to live on social media. And though it can feel impossible to break out of that overthinking spiral, we assure you that is not the case.
And we are willing to prove it, in fact it is why we made this list of simple feline funnies fur the exact moment you realize that you can't stop overthinking. So if you are not quite there, hold off a bit and come back to experience the maximum effect. And if you find that you need some more, check out this list of single brain celled cat memes to calm your overclocked mind.
Customer: "I need a gift for a six-year-old boy."
Me: "Then you're in the right place. Does he—"
Customer: "I need it to be annoying. Like, obnoxiously annoying. I want his parents to never find rest for as long as this kid has this gift."
Here at the I Can Has Cheezburger office we take the Cat Distribution System™ very seriously. After all, how else can you explain the meowgical moment a random cat shows up at your doorstep, stares into your soul, and decides you're now their hooman?
When one kind hooman shared how they found a lone kitten outside their home and simply said to themselves "Well… now we have six cats", it struck a chord. Because let's be honest, cats don't ask - they just arrive. And you don't adopt them - cats adopt you.
We went around our cat-pilled office and asked: "How did the Cat Distribution System choose you?" Here's what we heard from our fellow cat pawrent:
"She walked in through the window, curled up on my laundry, and never left."
"I found him sleeping on my car's hood. He screamed at me until I opened the door. Now he screams for snacks."
"I said I didn't want a cat. Then she jumped into my lap at the shelter and started purring. I was wrong."
"My dog brought him home. Like literally carried him into the house. They've been inseparable ever since."
"I fed one stray. Now the neighborhood cat council meets on my porch daily."
The Cat Distribution System works in mysterious (and hilarious) ways, and we're so glad it does. Do you love to hear about wholesome cat adoptions? Because you've arrived in the right place.
We know that we always tell you guys to keep your cats inside, and you should, but there is something we've never told you - we had an outdoor-only cat when we were kids. It wasn't our choice as we were kids, but her name was Meow (we named her when we were two), and she was our baby. She refused to use the litter box, though, so our parents decided she would be an outdoor cat. Our dad helped us build a heated shelter for her on our porch, where we would go out and feed her every morning and evening. We would even bring her inside some nights to sleep with us.
So, when this pawrent below said that their cat "just needed to be outside", we get it. We can't control our cats (as much as we try), but when their Karen neighbor captured their sweet kitty, that's when everything went south. Scroll down to read how this ridiculous Karen got put in her place by the very people she called as backup!
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