NOW IT LIVES ON THE FLOOR, BOOM

September 21, 2013 2:37 PM

Cats Knocking Shit Over
posted by The Whelk (134 comments total)

Cat at :51 appears in a gif captioned:

FUCK THIS
FUCK THAT
FUCK THAT ALSO
FUCK THIS THING IN PARTICULAR
posted by Countess Elena at 2:40 PM on September 21, 2013 [39 favorites]

I love the way they all watch the stuff falling after it goes over the edge.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:42 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

CatsAreDicks.mov
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:44 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Surely there must be some sort of evolutionary explanation for this behavior?

Or maybe it is just that cats live to inconvenience humanity
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:47 PM on September 21, 2013 [8 favorites]

This should be required viewing before becoming a cat owner. Before we brought home our grey cat, I used to keep a water glass by the bed at night. Safe to say, that is no longer an option in our house.
posted by Wulfhere at 2:47 PM on September 21, 2013 [24 favorites]

What? I didn't do it. It was the other cat.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:47 PM on September 21, 2013 [7 favorites]

I was sure they were going to end the video with this -- it's a classic of the genre. Guess they couldn't get the rights to it?
posted by radwolf76 at 2:48 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

I will show this to Yorvit when he wakes from his nap.
posted by gingerbeer at 2:49 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

This should be required viewing before becoming a cat owner. Before we brought home our grey cat, I used to keep a water glass by the bed at night. Safe to say, that is no longer an option in our house.

My cat would shove her head/neck/upper torso down inside and try to drink from it. Still wound up on the floor and/or bed.
posted by curious nu at 2:50 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

I used to have a cat who taught me that it is a bad idea to have a headboard with a built-in bookshelf and to keep hardback books in it.
posted by rtha at 2:50 PM on September 21, 2013 [18 favorites]

Cats really do not want us to take our medicine.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 2:51 PM on September 21, 2013 [10 favorites]

Cat at :51 appears in a gif captioned:

FUCK THIS
FUCK THAT
FUCK THAT ALSO
FUCK THIS THING IN PARTICULAR

No fair teasing the gif without a link.
posted by sparklemotion at 2:51 PM on September 21, 2013 [22 favorites]

Wow it's so obviously on purpose (not a cat owner).
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:52 PM on September 21, 2013

My cat would shove her head/neck/upper torso down inside and try to drink from it.

In my parents' home, if you set down a glass of water, you place a book on top of it. This is because the grey cat will somehow sense that there is a water glass in the house and come running from rooms away to stick her head inside it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:52 PM on September 21, 2013 [9 favorites]

My little buddy almost died in a horribly painful fashion when he knocked my netbook off the back of the toilet (where he never went previously) and into the bowl, while it was turned on and I was showering. What? No one else here reads ebooks on the can?
posted by Samizdata at 2:55 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

And, yeah, the horribly painful fashion would have been me.
posted by Samizdata at 2:57 PM on September 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

Had a cat who did the glass thing, but almost exclusively with red wine and/or full bongs.

The other cat would sit next to the ashtray, fish out each individual butt, then tip the tray onto the floor.

We didn't get our deposit back on that one.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:58 PM on September 21, 2013 [31 favorites]

If you want a beast what heeds, do not get a cat. No heeding will occur.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:06 PM on September 21, 2013 [9 favorites]

I will show this to Yorvit when he wakes from his nap.

Edmund totally didn't notice that there were cats in the computer. He was took busy licking paper. (I had to hand a textbook back in to the department last year that looked like it had had water spilled on it because Edmund had licked it so many times. God knows what was in the ink. Catnip apparently.)
posted by hoyland at 3:08 PM on September 21, 2013

The criminal catstice system is so overwhelmed by these bad cats, cat prisons are so overpopulated, we need to put more federal funding into social rehabilitation programs for these repeat offenders.
posted by elizardbits at 3:09 PM on September 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

The cat that knocked over the candle is going to give me nightmares. I just have to repeatedly tell myself that it wouldn't have done that with a lit candle.
posted by mullacc at 3:09 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

I used to be kind of sloppy. Clean but a little messy, I often left things lying around the house, and whenever I tried to re-train myself nothing seemed to stick. Then last October I adopted a cat whose special purpose is making sure there are no THINGS on OTHER THINGS. EVAR. When I went to the pound he totally picked me, and I'm sure it was to teach me how to be a little neater.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:10 PM on September 21, 2013 [42 favorites]

Thankfully neither of my cats do this, but my old Tom did. Do you suppose it's for attention?

"Hey I'm going to knock this off the table... oh hey! You're looking at me and talking loudly to me now. ^_^ Hi!"
posted by royalsong at 3:12 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

My previous cat once managed to knock a glass of water from my nightstand onto my head. At 6 AM.
posted by octothorpe at 3:15 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

I fall asleep and my cat gets on the nightstand and considers it his duty to knock everything onto the floor. After he conquers the nightstand, he gets in his cat bed and falls asleep (probably dreaming of knocking more things onto the floor).
posted by Eclipsante at 3:16 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like the last cat, who clearly needs something to keep all his very many toes busy.
posted by jeather at 3:18 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

I just have to repeatedly tell myself that it wouldn't have done that with a lit candle.

You tell yourself that. Millions of cat owners know better.

(One of my parents cats walked over a lit candle, then wondered where the burning smell came from. Sweet thing, but not the brightest of the bunch.)
posted by MartinWisse at 3:18 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

I used to pet-sit two Bengals who were the shit-knocking-overest cats I've ever met, and it was entirely accidental. They'd just walk along and everything in their path fell over. It was amazing.
posted by Metroid Baby at 3:19 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

You don't need cats to make that a bad idea, as per the Onion: Man Puts Glass Of Water On Bedside Table In Case He Needs To Make Huge Mess In Middle Of Night
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:20 PM on September 21, 2013 [15 favorites]

My previous cat once managed to knock a glass of water from my nightstand onto my head. At 6 AM.

I've heard so many stories of cats who, after sitting and patting their owner's face refuses to elicit the thumbshaver to wakefulness, walking over to the arlam clock and knocking it over. The crash awakens the owner who gets to watch the cat look them dead in the eye and, to remind them who has the power in this relationship, knocks over another night table object.
posted by The Whelk at 3:22 PM on September 21, 2013 [17 favorites]

(One of my parents cats walked over a lit candle, then wondered where the burning smell came from. Sweet thing, but not the brightest of the bunch.)

My youngest once cuddled with a candle until we noticed the smell of burning fur and blew it out. She is also not particularly bright, but boy, does she love her warms.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:23 PM on September 21, 2013 [8 favorites]

My cats actually don't knock things over, except for glasses which they desperately want to drink out of. Is there water available for them in lots of places? Absolutely. Is it as good as the water in a glass that is smaller than their face? Not at all.

In not unrelated news, I am switching over all my glasses to wide mouth.
posted by jeather at 3:24 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

You know how cats always fall and land on their feet? They can do that because they constantly test that gravity remains in effect. They're not assholes, they're SCIENTISTS.
posted by marylynn at 3:27 PM on September 21, 2013 [51 favorites]

I must have the odd one then because she never knocks over things. I am amazed how she navigates the coffee table
...stepping over and around things.
posted by shockingbluamp at 3:31 PM on September 21, 2013

We had a cat cuddle up to a hot coal on the hearth in front of the fireplace once. Yeah fine it was a chilly morning, understood, but seriously. (To put your mind at ease, this ended with no serious damage, just a really persistent singed smell in the kitchen.)
posted by Wolfdog at 3:33 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

I used to have a cat that would do this to wake me up in the mornings. He would sit on a shelf and knock various bits of bric a brac onto the floor, then double check whether the desired result had been achieved. He would give me maybe 15-30 seconds to respond, and repeat as necessary. When I would finally yell and throw a pillow at him, he would do the exact opposite of what a dog being yelled at would do - he would jump down and come toward me very proudly, tail held high, going, "Okay, now you can feed me. We're making progress. Very good!"
posted by Naberius at 3:35 PM on September 21, 2013 [10 favorites]

I like the cats that will look you in the eye while they do it like "Call the cops, like I give a fuck." Stone cold.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:37 PM on September 21, 2013 [86 favorites]

At my old apartment, I would keep my glasses on the windowsill a couple of feet above my pillow at night. My cats quickly learned to use this trick to tell me they were hungry in the morning.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:41 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like the one cat that was ambi-paw-dextrous. First right then left then right then left. Nice.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:42 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

NOW IT LIVES ON THE FLOOR is exactly what I think when my orange cat does this. The tabby never does it, only Mr Orange.

He also does it when I go in the bathroom in the morning before feeding them. They have a two pronged "giveusbreakfast" approach. Tabby purrs and rubs against my legs while I'm brushing my teeth etc, and the orange one darts in, knocks something off the tub ledge, and darts out. This continues until breakfast is served.

Little tyrants.
posted by sweetkid at 3:53 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

In not unrelated news, I am switching over all my glasses to wide mouth

I only drink out of mason jars. Too many glasses lost to "whoops, was that my tail?" or "this would look better on the floor, possibly broken. Look the water just goes everywhere! Let's step in it and then run all over."
posted by sweetkid at 3:55 PM on September 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

Selection bias. Cats play with objects by pushing them in randomly chosen directions. Fifty percent of the time, they push objects towards the middle of the table, not towards the edge. All those times have been edited out (many of the clips have obvious cuts, and few of them show cats pushing objects off the table repeatedly in one continuous shot).

Ailurophobia is a terrible thing.
posted by dontjumplarry at 3:59 PM on September 21, 2013

You don't have a cat, do you, dontjumplarry?
posted by gingerbeer at 4:00 PM on September 21, 2013 [34 favorites]

Yea cats knocking shit over for lulz is a thing.
posted by sweetkid at 4:02 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Fifty percent of the time, they push objects towards the middle of the table, not towards the edge.

Nope, wrong. Some cats really do love knocking things over. I had a cat named Brad Pitt, who CONSTANTLY knocked things off of other things.

My two current cats have no such desire.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:06 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, this video is a lot of fun.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:06 PM on September 21, 2013

I'm reserving judgment till I see a randomized controlled trial coded by independent observers.
posted by dontjumplarry at 4:07 PM on September 21, 2013

This is all fine but did no-one see the cat push the other cat out of the attic and hear that loud CRUMP?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:21 PM on September 21, 2013 [11 favorites]

That was the best one. I was half expecting a single hubcap to come rolling into view after that crash noise.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:22 PM on September 21, 2013 [11 favorites]

My two cats knock each other off things all the time just to watch the other one fall. Cruel little fluffballs.
posted by octothorpe at 4:25 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

I'm reserving judgment till I see a randomized controlled trial coded by independent observers.

You are the subject not the researcher.
posted by srboisvert at 4:27 PM on September 21, 2013 [10 favorites]

Ha! Wigford not only knocks things over, he pulls down anything he finds hanging just a bit over the edge onto the floor.

I've heard so many stories of cats who, after sitting and patting their owner's face refuses to elicit the thumbshaver to wakefulness, walking over to the arlam clock and knocking it over. The crash awakens the owner who gets to watch the cat look them dead in the eye and, to remind them who has the power in this relationship, knocks over another night table object.

My Lucy used to start with tender purring in my ear and gentle pats on my face, then progress to jumping on my feet. If that was not enough to get me up, she would unsheathe her claws and swipe at my toes.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:41 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cats are proof that the brain center that allows one to feel love is completely different from the brain center that houses the conscience.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:42 PM on September 21, 2013 [7 favorites]

There's also the brain center that houses the parasites.
posted by gingerbeer at 4:44 PM on September 21, 2013 [13 favorites]

Oh Franzen.
posted by The Whelk at 4:46 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

I appreciate how the last cat ignored the cup just long enough to get away with it. Never trust a cat who is deliberately ignoring something.

Also, let's not derail the thread please. There's enough grumpiness and recrimination elsewhere.
posted by wotsac at 4:53 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

We have a "no paws or noses in the glass" rule in this house.

The cats do not have this rule, just the helper monkeys.
posted by rtha at 4:54 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

On a technical note I gotta say I love the way this video solves the vertical video syndrome issue.
posted by Bistle at 4:57 PM on September 21, 2013 [10 favorites]

In not unrelated news, I am switching over all my glasses to wide mouth.

The owned cat owner.. No discouraging the behavior, no moving the glasses so that cats can't access the water or a billion other ways of dealing with it.

Instead we have the owner that gets the cats more accessible water glasses.

Toxoplasmosis for the win!
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:57 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Why is it so hilarious when it's other people's cats?

This video is from CBC - which suddenly makes me realize, sometimes when cats do this they look like they're taking slap shots.

Surely there must be some sort of evolutionary explanation for this behavior?
After you figure that out, tell me why mine puts her stuffed mouse in her water dish. Does she think she's drowning it?
posted by NorthernLite at 4:59 PM on September 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

I like the cats who push things over while looking in the other direction, then feign surprise that the object has fallen. Again.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:00 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Pfeh, toxoplasmosis. The real problem is that once they start realizing they can get filtered water in a cup they figure out that there's no need to keep drinking from that boring old dish of tap water on the floor, and then you've created a monster.
posted by Sequence at 5:00 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

What, you don't have a filtered water system for your cats?
posted by octothorpe at 5:10 PM on September 21, 2013 [8 favorites]

Why is it so hilarious when it's other people's cats?

I was also wondering why the people were setting stuff up for the cats to knock over. Funny as it is, I hate when my guy does this and wouldn't encourage it.

I know, I know, for the YouTube views.
posted by sweetkid at 5:13 PM on September 21, 2013

The first time I ever cat-sat for a friend, resulted in an interesting second night. I sat in the middle of my living room drinking red wine, while the teenage cat walked around and knocked every single thing off the shelves, individually. We understood each other a lot better after that night, until she went into heat for the first time a few days later.
I still look after friends' cats sometimes and there is always some kind of traumatic event.
posted by joboe at 5:29 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wish there was a video of this one. From John Cole at Balloon Juice, about his fat white cat Tunch and his sometimes evil jack russell terrier Rosie:

Yesterday, when I went to go to the lumber yard to get a couple dozen bags of topsoil, I couldn’t find my wallet. It drove me nuts, because I KNOW that I had placed it on the second desk in my office the night before. But when I went there, it was gone. I looked everywhere, and couldn’t find it, and then, on a hunch (since she has already chewed up one wallet and made an attempt on this wallet), I checked under the Morris chair in the spare bedroom where Rosie like to stash her (MY) stuff. And sure enough, there it was. I couldn’t figure out how she was doing it, until now.

As I was sitting here working, Tunch jumped up onto the spare desk, nonchalantly walked over and knocked my wallet onto the ground. In a flash, Rosie shot out from underneath my feet at the desk, picked up the wallet, and took off for the spare bedroom. Tunch just sat there and gave me a “WTF are you going to do about it, fat man?”

I just sat there for a minute, stunned. I think I may have actually said “You gotta be shitting me” out loud, because it dawned on me that if they really are working together, I’m screwed.
posted by honestcoyote at 5:33 PM on September 21, 2013 [37 favorites]

Ailurophobia is a terrible thing.

So are cats.
posted by moonmilk at 6:04 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

I used to have a cat that would do this to wake me up in the mornings. He would sit on a shelf and knock various bits of bric a brac onto the floor, then double check whether the desired result had been achieved. He would give me maybe 15-30 seconds to respond, and repeat as necessary.

I wish I could remember who it was who posted about her cat doing this same thing, which in her household was referred to as "killing the hostages."
posted by Kat Allison at 6:15 PM on September 21, 2013 [37 favorites]

My cat wakes me up with this nonsense. He'll push the [whatever] *just enough* that it makes a noise, and I wake up and glare at him, and then if I don't get up, he shoves it off the edge. While I'm looking at him.

(If I still don't get up, he moves on to patting me on the head, then tugging my hair with either his claws or his teeth. I've tried training him out of it, but then one morning I forgot to set my alarm and it was the only reason I wasn't horribly late for work, so. *shrugs*)
posted by insufficient data at 6:21 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Tyrants. The only reason my cats don't wake me up with their shit is I lock them out. And yea lock, because the tabby can turn the handle and open the door.
posted by sweetkid at 6:23 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

You know how cats always fall and land on their feet? They can do that because they constantly test that gravity remains in effect. They're not assholes, they're SCIENTISTS.

It is a little-known fact that Isaac Newton was not inspired by an apple falling from a tree, but by a glass of water his cat dumped off his headboards onto his head.
posted by bukvich at 6:31 PM on September 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

The owned cat owner.. No discouraging the behavior, no moving the glasses so that cats can't access the water or a billion other ways of dealing with it.

Instead we have the owner that gets the cats more accessible water glasses.

Yes, because if the glasses are wide they can fit their heads into it and just drink the water from the glass. If the glasses are narrow, they knock them over to get at the water. I know myself well enough to know that I'm not going to suddenly stop drinking half a glass of water and forgetting it somewhere, and I'm not stupid enough to think it is possible to discourage cats from drinking easily accessible water.
posted by jeather at 6:46 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

elizardbits: "The criminal catstice system is so overwhelmed by these bad cats, cat prisons are so overpopulated, we need to put more federal funding into social rehabilitation programs for these repeat offenders."

There is NO hope. These animals are shameless multiple recativists! No shame, no mercy, no humanity. And society ignores them! We get articles about mass murderers and socipaths, but what about the mouse murderers and sociocats!

Of course, all the government would do is The War On Purrs, and we know how all their "War" programs work.
posted by Samizdata at 7:03 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

marylynn: "You know how cats always fall and land on their feet? They can do that because they constantly test that gravity remains in effect. They're not assholes, they're SCIENTISTS."

And then you launch an Indiegogo for a perpetual motion machine?

You know, the one with the buttered toast face up on a cat's back?
posted by Samizdata at 7:05 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

dontjumplarry: "I'm reserving judgment till I see a randomized controlled trial coded by independent observers."

Look, you OBVIOUSLY are not now nor have you ever been a real ailurophile, as you assume the words sense and cat belong in the same sentence.
posted by Samizdata at 7:08 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

moonmilk: "Ailurophobia is a terrible thing.

So are cats."

Yeah, but ailurophobia doesn't provide rumbly cuddles either.
posted by Samizdata at 7:11 PM on September 21, 2013 [6 favorites]

In the criminal justice system, there are two separate yet equally important groups: the people who put things on flat surfaces at varying heights above the ground; and the cats who knock those things the fuck off there.


*dunk-dunk*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:16 PM on September 21, 2013 [24 favorites]

Most of these cats are just clearing space for themselves. Ours don't do this, but we don't have much in the way of narrow ledges with knick-knacks in the way.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:17 PM on September 21, 2013

In the criminal justice system, there are two separate yet equally important groups: the people who put things on flat surfaces at varying heights above the ground; and the cats who knock those things the fuck off there.

Those things Now Live On The Floor. This is their story.
posted by sweetkid at 7:28 PM on September 21, 2013 [20 favorites]

Sometimes it's to clear space, sometimes it's just 'cause the cat's a dick. Only one of my cats does this, and so far it is only up on the wide, mostly empty shelf in my bedroom closet. Somehow the old lighter, random coins, and paperwork shoved in the back corner must go on the floor.
posted by wotsac at 7:44 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Only one of my cats does this, and so far it is only up on the wide, mostly empty shelf in my bedroom closet.

You mean, The Cat Shelf.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:02 PM on September 21, 2013 [11 favorites]

Oh random coins must go on the floor. The noise is so very satisfactory, and then you can also scoot them all over the floor with your wee paws so that the human will be picking up coins for weeks.
posted by sweetkid at 8:07 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Most of these cats seem to dislike the presence of an object directly in front of them, like it impedes their line of sight, or swift forward movement.

As for knocking things over in their role as an alternate alarm clock: cats don't need to knock things over to wake you up (slyt).
posted by datawrangler at 8:23 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

This is why we can't have nice things on top of other things.
posted by Foosnark at 8:36 PM on September 21, 2013 [32 favorites]

Well that's what you get for putting stuff on their sleeping/lounging surfaces.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:42 PM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Tyrants. The only reason my cats don't wake me up with their shit is I lock them out. And yea lock, because the tabby can turn the handle and open the door.

Surely they howl like demented banshees when you do that?
posted by winna at 8:56 PM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

This is the reason that I can't leave battlemats set up between game sessions. Or board games.

We also had to move our Ukranian easter eggs into special cases after the cats discovered how much fun they were to knock over and smash, and damaged my great-grandmothers egg.
posted by Canageek at 9:25 PM on September 21, 2013

Bistle: "On a technical note I gotta say I love the way this video solves the vertical video syndrome issue."

That is very slick without being obtrusive. Though at first I though they were trying to mask personal identifiers like you'll see with amateur porn or so I've, um, heard.
posted by Mitheral at 9:39 PM on September 21, 2013

Look, it MOVES. I should not hit it WHY?

wap...thud...
posted by Samizdata at 12:48 AM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I have a 14 month old fat (already) orange tom. Things have not been allowed on the kitchen island since he was about 4 months old because if left there, they end up on the floor within minutes.

On the one hand, that is good, because I come from a long line of "Yeah, that's the table...under all the stuff." On the other... seriously, cat, let me have five freaking minutes to cut potatoes and then you can have the island back, nooooooo *dinner on the floor*.

Sabrina: 0. Cat: ∞
posted by sldownard at 12:49 AM on September 22, 2013 [5 favorites]

So reading this thread it turns out my cats are actually well behaved. Who'd have thought.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:34 AM on September 22, 2013 [3 favorites]

I like the cats that will look you in the eye while they do it like "Call the cops, like I give a fuck." Stone cold.

This is why the late Dennis Farina would have made an awesome cat.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:22 AM on September 22, 2013 [9 favorites]

Tyrants. The only reason my cats don't wake me up with their shit is I lock them out. And yea lock, because the tabby can turn the handle and open the door.

Surely they howl like demented banshees when you do that?
posted by winna at 11:56 PM on September 21
[1 favorite −] [!]

No they play together. Sometimes there is a ruckus but no howling.
posted by sweetkid at 5:56 AM on September 22, 2013

My cat was used to mop up a spilled cup of tea the other day after he pulled this stunt and I did not have the zen to cope with it at that particular second. An angry, misguided part of my mind needed him to know there are Consequences! but this never be reigned in. Kitty hears me, kitty don't care.
He goes through stages with it, but a big deadline is really his time to shine. Notes, pens, computer mouse etc. If you catch him mid-swipe he will wrestle it with you. 'No! This must be a floor thing!'
All cat owners I know have water bottles in their bedrooms, with nice lids. My morning mission is often to see how far my glasses for from the nightstand. Then he doesn't do it for a while. You figure he's now a Mancat and has outgrown such tomfoolery, and you bring your tea over to your desk...
posted by Trivia Newton John at 6:40 AM on September 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

I remember seeing this macro and felt it accidentally served a rather poignant insight into how cats think and operate: Cats are intelligent, emotional, socialized beasts, but cannot (or do not) comprehend things like social order, home decorum, shame, humility, or respect in the same way we do. I think it's a big part of what makes them such uniquely fascinating creatures.

The cats in the photo explain their actions in a very self-serving, matter-of-fact fashion, like it's the most normal thing in the world, because why wouldn't it be? How is this thing different from this other thing that I can knock over? You are a titan, arbitrarily deciding the spatial and physical realities for this creature, attempting to manipulate its behaviors and motivations to fit your desires, why wouldn't you expect it to do the same?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:19 AM on September 22, 2013 [10 favorites]

Strangely, neither I nor my family have ever had a particular problem with our cats knocking shit over. In fact, of the roughly dozen cats I've lived with, very little knocking things over. I think it's because my family are so cluttered that there is SO MUCH stuff on a given flat surface that navigating it is a more interesting challenge.
posted by maryr at 7:30 AM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Surely they howl like demented banshees when you do that?

The best is when they stick their little paws under the door and scrabble desperately for the OBEY ME HUMAN LET ME IN button that they are sure must be there.
posted by elizardbits at 8:38 AM on September 22, 2013 [15 favorites]

You are a titan, arbitrarily deciding the spatial and physical realities for this creature, attempting to manipulate its behaviors and motivations to fit your desires, why wouldn't you expect it to do the same?

I sometimes think about what it would be like to live with someone so much larger than me, able to pick me up and carry me to a different room on a whim, for no apparent reason, whenever they like. Then I grin and go grab a cat to carry around for a bit.

My cats aren't so big into knocking over drinking vessels. So much more fun to wait until someone lifts it to their face then jump up and head-butt it, banging cup on teeth and splashing liquid everywhere.
posted by shelleycat at 9:58 AM on September 22, 2013 [6 favorites]

Oh random coins must go on the floor. The noise is so very satisfactory, ...

I used to live with a cat who loved that I collected spare change in an upturned frisbee on an elbow height mantle. Did he just dump the frisbee onto the floor? No. There was a whole amusement process:

First he'd fish his paws through the frisbee to push as many as he could over the lip and onto the shelf. Then the coins must be spread out so that they aren't on top of each other and aren't overlapping. Then, he did the coin pusher game sliding them all together and towards the edge, pausing to watch the bounces and ricochets as individual quarters hit the hardwood floor. Minutes of entertainment.
posted by ceribus peribus at 12:15 PM on September 22, 2013 [5 favorites]

They do that for the same reason my six-month-old nephew kept dropping his rattle toy.
It gets your attention. Granted, my nephew was probably smarter even at that age than some cats.
posted by bad grammar at 1:50 PM on September 22, 2013

This is why I switched to water bottles. Sure they're loud if knocked off a table. But no broken glass and the water is mine, damn it.
posted by Hactar at 4:46 PM on September 22, 2013

What? No one else here reads ebooks on the can?

Not off a laptop!
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:55 PM on September 22, 2013

Also in fairness to these cats, would you tolerate a bunch of random medicine bottles and pens and remote controls in your bed? No, you'd get that shit outta there. And then decide you weren't actually going to sleep on the coffee table, what you really want to do is sleep on top of the fridge and-...who put all these cereal boxes on my bed?
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:59 PM on September 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

It is fascinating how collectively we as Americans have decided that the top of the fridge is where we store the cereal.
posted by maryr at 5:04 PM on September 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

Who even keeps enough cereal in to have a whole box if you're not sick/have kids?
posted by The Whelk at 5:07 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I eat it for dinner sometimes. And I buy two when they are on sale.
posted by maryr at 5:07 PM on September 22, 2013

I have never kept my cereal on top of my fridge. Go Canada!
posted by jeather at 5:11 PM on September 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

If your cereal is on top of your fridge, where do you keep your hard liquor?
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:27 PM on September 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

My big Himalayan boy, Mooshi, doesn't really knock things over intentionally. He's only done it a few times in the seven years I've had him. When I first got him though, he went through a phase of (I'm assuming) mimicking my way of eating snacks. Sometimes he'd jump on the desk as I was on the computer and "ask" for some treats. I'd line up a few treats on the edge of the desk for him because one of the perches of his old scratching post (where he liked to lounge) was level with (and right next to) the desk. Then he'd jump over to his perch and snatch up the treats one by one. One day, to my surprise and amusement, he began attempting to palm/paw the individual treats with his pads and put them in his mouth just like a human. It was so funny to watch. His success rate was initially only about 20% but he wouldn't jump down on the floor to get the fallen treats from his unsuccessful attempts. He'd impart that he wanted me to pick them up and put them back on the edge of the desk, where he'd go through the whole deal again. It got to the point where he wouldn't eat treats anywhere else, and if I attempted to give them to him at another location he'd run over to his perch and call me over to line the treats up the way he liked them. I'm assuming having the treats on the edge of the desk helped give him extra purchase. His success rate eventually went up to almost 50% but a few months later he abruptly stopped the ritual as suddenly as he'd started it. Weird kitty.
posted by Devils Slide at 5:56 PM on September 22, 2013 [7 favorites]

My cleaner put my cat food on top of the fridge and the cats have somehow not yet noticed!
posted by sweetkid at 6:18 PM on September 22, 2013

My hard liquor is in the built in hutch. It and hard wood floors are the only benefits of living in a triple decker.
posted by maryr at 8:01 PM on September 22, 2013

Hard liquor is of course, on a silver-plate tray atop the wine steward, you savages.
posted by The Whelk at 8:09 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hope your wine steward has the proper deportment to keep it sliding off. I had to fire my last one for such clumsiness.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:21 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Did your last wine steward have a cat, by chance?
posted by maryr at 8:23 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Had a cat.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:28 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Is a cat. He can't really carry the bottles in his mouth but it's great at detecting corked wines before they're opened.
posted by The Whelk at 9:03 PM on September 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Wine at our house is stored under a counter, used corks are stored under the fridge.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:14 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

My parents kept the catnip in a pantry drawer next to a pencil cup. Their cat would knock pencils to the floor as a way to request a little 'nip. When they tired of broken pencil tips, my parents provided a small pile of wine corks for the cat's use; he adapted quickly. When truley jonsing for a fix, the cat would carry a cork to the nearest human and drop it at his/her feet. Catnip is a helluva drug.
posted by carmicha at 9:14 PM on September 22, 2013 [6 favorites]

Little Old Lady Cat gets regular catnip treats cause she's Old and Kinda Blind and you just wave them in-front of her until she grabs it and goes off to stoned kitty heaven.
posted by The Whelk at 9:20 PM on September 22, 2013

My husband and I both work from home part of the time. Around 3 in the afternoon the cats decide it's time for dinner - which it's totally not - and jump up on my desk to harass me about it. When sitting on the keyboard, blocking the monitor, trying to electrocute themselves chewing on cables and generally fuzzing up the place isn't effective, they resort to pushing everything they can off of the desk. They actually look at me in between every infraction - binder clip clatters to floor, cat looks at me, sees that I am not going to respond, sighs, and pushes a notebook onto the floor. They continue this until the entire contents of my desktop are on the floor or until I get pissed and lock them out of the room.

God they are so goddamn cute and I love them so much.
posted by 8dot3 at 6:04 AM on September 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

They actually look at me in between every infraction - binder clip clatters to floor, cat looks at me, sees that I am not going to respond, sighs, and pushes a notebook onto the floor.

Yes. Yes!
posted by sweetkid at 7:21 AM on September 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

8dot3, your cats are running a mafia protection racket in your house. As long as they get paid fed in a timely manor, nothing gets broken and no one gets hurt.
posted by octothorpe at 9:16 AM on September 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

All cats should be named Ruprecht.
posted by dry white toast at 12:04 PM on September 23, 2013

We can go on vacation for a weekend, a week, two weeks, a month. Whatever.. As soon as we get back home, exhausted, and are in the process of dragging all the luggage, bedding, souvenir bags, whatever back into the house, and only when he is sure we are watching, our cat Frederico will knock a wine-glass or tumbler, or whatever off the shelf or table we left it on onto the floor. Then he'll just stare at whoever noticed it first. WELCOME BACK HERE IS SOME SHATTERED GLASS FOR YOU - I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A LONG TIME I HOPE YOU LIKE IT NOW GO CLEAN OUT MY SHITBOX
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:07 PM on September 23, 2013 [5 favorites]

This (RIP) is why we stopped keeping a glass of water next to the bed.

One of our current cats has discovered an even better method to wake me up, though: walk across our heads to my nightstand and start trying to knock my glasses off the table. Since I can't see without them, I usually wake up just enough to grab them and hide them under my pillow. Usually.
posted by mogget at 3:57 PM on September 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I love how y'all have alarm clock cats. Mine hears the alarm and gently puts his paw on my forehead as if to say, "No need to go rushing off just yet. I'm comfortable sucking the heat off the top of your head." The effectiveness of this technique is directly correlated to the length of time it has been since his nails have been trimmed.
posted by Fezboy! at 4:07 PM on September 23, 2013 [5 favorites]

Also, a big reason cats drink out of glasses on the table instead of their water dish, is because many cats do not like their drinking water near their food (as the food can get in it and contaminate it).

So I hear anyway.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 4:44 PM on September 23, 2013

It would seem the video is gone. Damn my "cat video watching on the clock is bad" job.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:07 AM on September 24, 2013

This video has been removed by the user. Sorry about that.

Sorry indeed :(
posted by fix at 11:44 PM on September 24, 2013

(as the food can get in it and contaminate it).

Edmund totally missed this memo. He deposits his 'prey' (toys and bits of paper) in the water dish and sometimes bits of food. No idea why.
posted by hoyland at 5:40 AM on September 25, 2013

Mine does this too. Very raccoon like. Sometimes she puts them in her food.
posted by maryr at 10:46 AM on September 25, 2013

He deposits his 'prey' (toys and bits of paper) in the water dish and sometimes bits of food. No idea why.

My cats used to like to drop them in the toilet, after which I restricted them to toys that did not look like blood.
posted by jeather at 10:51 AM on September 25, 2013

My parents' cat used to put all her toys in her water when she was a kitten and then push on them with a paw, to drown them I guess.

Also my cats broke a lightbulb that I had put on a counter this morning. They did it together. i saw both of them on the counter looking down at glass everywhere. Then they jumped down and ran around in it because cut paws yay! All right before I was about to walk out the door. Welp. Broom time. And check for injuries for everyone.
posted by sweetkid at 10:59 AM on September 25, 2013

Mine isn't nearly as aggressive as yours; He and his late brother would just knock over small things that looked fun to play with. Like fragile eggs that go smash, or dice, or game pieces.
posted by Canageek at 9:38 PM on September 25, 2013