my brother is teaching his cat how to high five by giving her a treat every time she successfully taps her hand to his hand, which is all well and good, but now she thinks that she is entitled to food every time she high fives someone. i can’t eat in the same room as her anymore because she’ll just bap my hand rapid fire and then go nyoom straight in for my pizza like no Kelly that’s illegal go finish ur own dinner
“No Kelly, that’s illegal.”
So, a while back, I was using clicker-training to teach my cat Taz tricks. She learned very quickly and it was a good experience all around, but we had to hide the clicker.
Taz had learned that the clicker meant she got treats. So she would find it, carry it up to people, step on it to make it click, and then SCREAM AT THEM to give her the treats she was clearly owed because the clicker had made a sound.
I am a single adult human living in a house with two corgis. Got Girldog from a shelter when she was about a year, year and a half old maybe; got Boydog a few years later as an 8-week puppeh. And let me tell you something, from Day One, this has been a three-way psychological experiment. I no longer know who is manipulating who on a daily basis.
One of the first things I trained Girldog to do was not to bark at the dinner table; if she barked at me while I was eating, I put her in The Quiet Place (her crate) where she couldn’t see me. She learned almost immediately to subvocalize her barks, to let out a breath with just enough vocal cord vibration that I wouldn’t QUIIIITE consider it a bark and move her further away from the food. It’s a sound like this: “Hrrrr. Hrrrr. Hhhrahhh.” I didn’t realize how odd this was until my aunt came over and said, “That dog hissed at me.” “Yes,” I said, “she does that.”
Boydog learned to do tricks by watching Girldog. I never taught him to sit. He learned by watching Girldog get a treat for sitting. Once, I told both dogs to sit at the same time, while I held a treat in each hand. When Girldog didn’t sit quick enough, Boydog put his paw on her butt and pushed her down.
I hung a bell on the door and taught Boydog to ring it when he wants to go out. Girldog sees no reason she should ring the bell, as it is beneath her dignity, and she can get her way by barking instead. Boydog, however, will ring the bell for Girldog when she lurks around by the door, although he has no interest in going outside himself. Girldog has made Boydog her personal slave in this matter.
Boydog rings the bell when he doesn’t need to go out but thinks I have been at my computer too long. By the time I get to the kitchen, he’s nowhere near the door, but hey mom, as long as you’re up, let’s play! He obviously does not believe I can see through this extremely clever ploy.
Girldog once climbed onto a sofa, crossed the back of it, leapt from the sofa to my desk chair, leapt from the chair to the desk, and knocked all my stuff off the desk. (I wasn’t there, but it was obvious from the trail of destruction what route she had taken.) Then she got down and proceeded to ignore the bag of corn chips she’d encountered and focus her attention on biting my phone charger in half, chewing up a USB memory stick, and eating a pen. I still have no idea how she could be so smart and so dumb at the same time.
Boydog will chase a laser pointer (not uncommon for dogs introduced to them as puppies! Pro tip) but only when Girldog is not around, because she hates it for some reason and will tackle him for it. Girldog also likes to be outside while I want to be in, and Boydog prefers to have us both inside. Boydog will lead me to the laser pointer, pester me until I get it down, and then run around chasing the laser and barking madly. No matter how stubborn Girldog has been about staying outside, she wants to know what he’s barking at and immediately comes inside. (It is always the laser pointer he’s barking at, Girldog. Always.)
There is a chair in my bedroom that I cannot sit on. The dogs take turns sleeping on it, depending on who gets there first. The only hard and fast rule is that if the human sits on the chair, they will both lose their cool. The chair is for dogs only. I have not even tried to sit on the chair for about six months now.
I suspect I’ll be adding more of these as the three of us continue to train each other.
I’m not misspelling procrastination, alright, I am a master wordsmith. But I’m totally unable to write while this story unfolds.
So my dad is a very smart, quite reserved man who loves animals. He maintains that he is not fond of our very needy cat, who is basically shaped like a feather boa with little stubby black fox feet. She’s stupidly long and soft and fluffy, and they are Not Friends.
Okay, guys? They are Not Friends. This will be important.
So she had a paralysis tick and gave everyone a scare, and while she’s recovering, she’s on The Good Shit and not particularly mobile. And still very needy. So she doesn’t want to be alone but can’t follow people around tripping them the fuck over or ambushing them with her fluffy body the second they sit down. So she takes to mewling sadly while in a collapsed puddle of fluff, her soft belly fur turned up in that weird cat-doughnut shape.
Okay, right. So I come to visit and this is sad. This is a sad thing to happen to a cat I love, so I pick her up. Wait, why is she still mewling? How curious. Am I not good enough for you, cat? Guided by rising or falling levels of purring, I find myself standing next to my dad. The mewling is now incessant. The cat is basically vibrating off my arms. My dad is looking especially reserved and pointedly looking away from me and this cat he Does Not Like and Has Never Liked, Thank You, No I Don’t Find Her Little Fox Stubs Adorable.
I place the cat on his shoulder, where she promptly shifts around until she’s basically a scarf draped around his neck and falls asleep drooling on his ear. Purring. My dad is still refusing to look at me at this stage, but it’s hard to pull off Stoic Man while be-catted.
“Dad,” I say. “Can’t help but notice that she’s only interested in hanging out with you.”
“Not my fault. Don’t even like this damn cat,” he says in a manful fashion, walking quickly off. Wearing his scarf-cat.
From her hysterical cries when someone tries to remove her, it quickly becomes apparent that the cat is only interested in being with my dad. She becomes inconsolable when she can’t see him and my dad, who you would think would be resistant to this, has taken to wearing her as a scarf-cat and lovingly hand-feeding her through her convalescence. There’s nothing stopped her from eating under her own power, just so you know.
Turns out they are actually Best Friends. My dad has been hiding this with remarkable consistency for almost a decade now. He’s been living a double life since we got her nine years ago.
She’s totally fine now. He’s still wearing her like a scarf and if you give him a funny look about it, he will absolutely pretend he is not. This is the hill he will die on. Wearing our fluffy feather-boa cat around his neck.
guys at my university I have a part time job where my sole responsibility is filling up the piano humidifaction systems with water
I literally am a piano waterer & tbh I kinda feel like I’m thriving
I feel like I need to add that I carry around this water jug that kinda looks like a regular watering can and when people ask me what I’m doing I just say “watering the pianos” and walk away
I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (“say bye bus!”) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
I’m glad there’s a teacher version of “accidentally called teacher ‘mom’”
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people “my lord”
One time during family prayer, dad began: “our father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?”
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say ‘Welcome to White Castle, what’s your crave?’) asked, “Welcome to White Castle, what’s your problem?”
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s and the girl said “Welcome to McDonalds” and then just sighed
Somebody in the elevator asked me what floor I lived on, and I answered “please open your books to page eight”, and we just kind of stared at each other, blinking.
i work retail full time and my script gets frequently messy – ill ask the same question twice, or say “$2.60 is your total” while handing back their change, or say “how are you doing today?” instead of “have a good day!” like name it ive bungled it
but anyway, this lady came thru my line buying a book and the review on the front said: “few books are well written, fewer still are important, and this book manages to be both”
as i handed her the bag i was trying to say “thanks, youre all set” and instead my brain mashed up the review and i said “thanks, youre important”
there was this short pause in which i tried to figure out what the fuck id just said. she blinked and then said “oh thank you! youre important too!”
the real kicker was one of my coworkers. when i was relating this story later his response was “at least you said something NICE. last week i accidentally combined ‘youre welcome’ and ‘no problem’ into ‘youre a problem’”
one time, since I used to work as a daycare teacher with preschoolers, i was on my college campus in my gym, and someone was running in the weight room and tripped over a machine and fell, and instead of offering to help, I just stared and said, “This is why we use our walking feet.”
we both sat there for a while until the guy nodded and said, “yeah, okay, i should’ve done that.”
I’ve spent a good chunk of time working in kitchens, so I still will reflexively say shit like “behind” and “coming around” as I maneuver through spaces and around people.
Which, actually, not such a bad thing; I’m a big guy and can come across as imposing pretty easily. The position calls can help defuse that, and also help avoid collisions.
Less good is the time my brain was half functional and I let slip a “coming with a knife” while grocery shopping. THAT took some explaining.
I work in an office and send tens of emails to customers every day. Once my mum asked me to send her a train ticket I had bought for her. I emailed her “Hello mum, as agreed, please find attached the ticked you requested. Thanks, Alex”
i worked as a camp counselor, and i would have the kids tap somewhere on my legs if they needed something because im a pretty tall dude. today asked my cat if he needed something.
I have woken up in a cold sweat saying “is that for here or to go?”
Every time a friend thanks me, and I respond with “gladly” or “my pleasure”, I die completely 1000% inside
I work at a plasma donation center. When processing donors, we call them by name, they walk up to the counter, and then we ask for their name and donor number. One time, instead of saying “Robert” I hollered “Name and donor number!?” into a full waiting room. Three people started announcing their names and donor numbers before we all realized that I fucked up.
In college, I was a barista at Borders (remember Borders, you guys?!) I once drove through Taco Bell on my way home after a shift. When the cashier said, “okay, that’ll be $5.46!” I cheerfully responded, “Do you have a Borders rewards card?”
I have dealt with so many difficult customers over the years that I used to angrily call my dog “Sir” when I was mad at him.
My first job was at my nearest Panera, and after coming home from a ten-hour Sunday morning shift, I was exhausted; but when my mom called me to come downstairs, instead of replying in the grumpy teenagerish tone I usually would, I said in my cheeriest, fakest voice, “Not a problem at all, let me just check with my manager!” before realizing my mistake.
my coworker went to back up the cash registers one time and she had been at customer service right before. when we finish with a customer we have to sometimes get the attention of the next person and will shout “i can get the next person in line!” but instead of saying that she yelled “HI WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH” to everyone in the general area
I have told my dog “no thank you” so many times after working at a preschool
a couple of times i’ve gotten stuck in a hello how are you good how are you good how are you loop with an equally tired Fred Meyer’s cashier after a long shift but the best time was after a 10 to 10 post-holidays after they told me my total, I asked if they would like a bag today and after a confused few seconds they were like, “no… I have the bags”
Worked in a gallery where we asked people to take off their backpacks in order not to accidentally damage paintings. So when I went to the shop later and saw a guy in the line in front of me, I told him he had to remove his backpack. He probably thought I was politely trying to rob him.
I teach in a secondary school. One time I was driving my friends to buy skates and had to make a tricky turn in a very tight space up a very steep hill. They were all cracking jokes with each other and it was hard to focus so I snapped without thinking, “Ladies in the back, kindly stop talking,” in pure school trip teacher voice.
to be fair: it worked. they stopped talking.
I’ve worked at call centres almost all my working life. The number of times I’ve answered my personal phone with “Welcome to business faults, how can I help?” is… countless.
astronomy club sent up a weather balloon w a gopro in it last friday. put in three packs of fruit snacks so they could have a giggle over eating fruit snacks that had been to space.
balloon went up into inner space, about 90,000 feet. came down right near the dinosaur park. a few physics teachers drive out to get it, crack it open on the way home to start watching the footage.
fruit snacks are missing.
multiple sources confirm that fruit snacks were put in balloon and sealed in with duct tape. physics teachers check entire balloon. no fruit snacks.
physics teachers watch footage. all 7 hours of it. right in the middle of footage, there are about 8 minutes of visual and audio static when balloon is in orbit. no other interference with balloon recorded.
conclusions: ???????
aliens stole yo fruit snacks
I’ve been a UFO enthusiast for 2/3rds of my life and this is the most convincing alien encounters story I have ever heard.
so we have these cookie jars that sit on top of the cupboard right. we’ve had them for years. you can record yourself saying something so when you take the lid off you it will make a noise so you can hear if someone is stealing your cookies or something anyway anyway we have 3 of them. a pig, a cow, and an owl. now i was left alone one day. mum and dad at work, my brother at school and my sister at her boyfriends house. so i had a thought. what if i recorded myself screaming? so i did. in all 3 of them. all 3 different screams too. one was an excited shriek, one was a terrified scream, and one was a long shout. these cookie jars recorded up to 15 seconds, so i took FULL ADVANTAGE of that. now…here’s the thing…i did that almost 3 years ago. and these cookie jars have been sitting on top of the cupboard collecting dust.
until today.
mum’s painting the kitchen, so she had to take everything off the top of the cupboard. and uh…you know how battery powered things…start dying? they……slowly run out of juice? she asked me to check inside one of the jars. the pig, to be exact. and…the pig was the terrified scream. i unsuspectingly opened the jar and as the lid came off the jar, i remembered what i did. but i didn’t remember in time, because in that next second, a fucking demon cry sounded from this Almost Dead Battery Powered Pig Cookie Jar. it was a sound i never want to hear again. everyone ran into the kitchen to see what that god awful sound was and i just stood there, holding this satanic wailing pig. i shut my eyes, and waited the full 15 seconds, until it was silent, before turning to my mum and handed her the pig, and then leaving the kitchen.
i’ll admit i’ve done some dumb things in my life, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the sound i heard today.
Steel Phoenix Studios 