A relaxed black Persian cat with bright yellow-green eyes lies on its back indoors, bathed in soft natural daylight. 2:44

Scratch the plastic and other cat life hacks

Most life hacks are written for people. These are written for cats, and the cats of the house do the demonstrating. more

Their human reads the rules out loud, one at a time, in an accent and in the tone of a how-to guide. The cats act out each one.

The lessons cover the basics of running a home. Find every suspicious piece of paper and deal with it. Wake the human long before the alarm goes off, with a poke to the face if needed. And show the tail who is boss.

A black-and-white cat stands on a patterned surface with head lowered and tail curved upward. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Head down and tail high, one of the cats gets to work on a lesson.

Then comes the litter box. Covering up is optional. Scratch the plastic instead, and keep at it as if you're doing nothing at all. One of the cats takes this very seriously, scratching and sniffing and scratching again while her human wonders out loud what she thinks she is getting done.

A relaxed black Persian cat with bright yellow-green eyes lies on its back indoors, bathed in soft natural daylight. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Most life hacks are written for people.

Near the end, one of the cats rests in a lap and gets petted, and for a moment nobody is teaching anybody anything. That's one skill no cat needs a guide for.

A person pets a black-and-white cat resting on their lap indoors. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Near the end, one of the cats rests in a lap and gets petted.

Lots of cat owners know the plastic scratcher from home. The whole lesson plays as if a cat planned it and the people simply went along.

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