They say a picture is worth a thousand words. According to my calculations, that means a 10-second video is equivalent to a 240,000-word novel. Right? RIGHT?
I sure hope so, because then I’m about to drop a multiple-volume epic saga on your heads. Words are good, but sometimes me no want word much, so me do video instead.
That’s a lot of words to basically say one thing: I’m feeling lazy, so you’re getting some videos for your eyeballs in place of a blog post.
First, here is a video of Django’s failed balancing act:
Second, we have these IKEA shelves at home:
I know. Perfectly neat and entirely ordinary shelves. Now here’s what happens when two married people are bored at home on a Saturday night and have access to a camera. No, it’s not at all what you were thinking, but I see why you’d go there. (And yes, I am painfully aware of the fact that most normal people are out in town getting drunk, dancing to techno, and having naked ice bucket fights or whatever.)
What can I say? We’re as creative as we are desperately in need of a social life.
We’ve now had Django and Pebbles at home for almost two weeks. They’re everything you’d expect kittens to be: cute, cuddly, playful, too-curious-for-own-good. The lot.
However, I’ve been noticing some patterns in their behaviour. Patterns that hint at things not being quite right with these little cats. Yes, I’m afraid our two kittens are a bit…confused. I was going to say “stupid”, but I hear that cats can steal your breath, so I won’t be taking any risks.
Prior to their arrival we have purchased a bucket-load of different toys and other cat items. Some of these are used as prescribed, but the vast majority aren’t. It appears that Django and Pebbles are struggling to figure out the purpose for most of their stuff. Or maybe they’re just messing with our heads. It’s probably the latter.
What’s that? You want examples and you want them right now? Why yes, imaginary voice in my head, I can indeed provide you with the examples you seek.
We’ve built two little tents for Django and Pebbles to sleep in. We found two pillows that fit neatly inside the tents. We placed these tents in comfortable, out of the way locations, so that kittens could sleep in privacy. Here’s how these tents looked to begin with:
Did any sleep occur inside these tents? None. Instead they’ve been used for everything from ambush spots to hide-and-seek locations. At some stage a tent played the role of an advanced roller coaster – Django sat inside as it was being rolled down a small flight of stairs by Pebbles.
If you stay very very quiet, they can’t see you.
After a few days one of the tents was showing signs of wear-and-tear and had to be patched up by generous application of duct tape. This proved entirely pointless. This is how the “tent” looked earlier today:
Surrender now, humans! Repairs are futile!
Katka has also been lovingly growing some special cat grass for the kittens. She checked up on its growth daily, eagerly awaiting the day it could finally be given to the cats. The day finally arrived and Katka proudly placed the grass in front of Django. Django interpreted the grass’ demeanour as threatening and proceeded to defend himself. With fists. Or, more accurately, paws. Fawsts? Nevermind, here:
We also have a so-called “Scratching Wave”. Whoever manufactured this thing naively assumed that it would be used for scratching, as the laughably incorrect product shot demonstrates:
That cat is either glued in place or is made of papier-mâché.
I can confidently announce that neither Django nor Pebbles have scratched any parts of this product at any point time. They’ve already used the tent for that purpose. They do love sleeping on and under the “Scratching Wave”, though, so there’s that.
In short, our cats insist on using things for anything other than their intended purposes. Occasionally this works to our advantage, like when we had to weigh Django a few days ago. We figured we could use our kitchen scale to do so, if only we could somehow get him to stay inside a bowl while we placed it on the scale. We brought Django over to the bowl and carefully lowered him inside, ready to grab him should he try to escape. Apparently the bowl offered unprecedented comfort, because Django stayed inside of it for the next half hour:
It’s a vary naice. I like! High fiiiiive!
I don’t think I’ll ever understand these cats, but as long as they don’t start building sand castles out of their kitty litter we’ll be just fine.
I’ve just realised that this post inadvertently turned into Django tribute, with very little mention of Pebbles and absolutely no photos of her. Here’s one to compensate (with a bonus Django appearance):
Mankind wasn’t born to fly. We were born to do many other things, such as walk, eat, watch poor quality reality TV and make other bad life choices.
We were also born to run. Running originally helped us escape dangerous predators and was the fastest means of locomotion available. At some point we decided that running in place without actually propelling ourselves forward sounded like a much better idea (refer to “bad life choices” above).
So we invented the treadmill. Soon we mastered the art of running on the treadmill and a split second afterwards the art of falling flat on our faces while using the treadmill.
This post is the second in a series of visual guides designed to help you fail in a manner of your choosing. Just like with “7 ways to walk into glass“, my aim with this guide is not to help you avoid failing hilariously while other gym goers point and laugh. I am merely here to give guidance on how you can make the fail your own.
If you’re going to fall down and injure yourself, at the very least you can do so in a way that underlines your character and plays to your strengths. Pick your favourites from the below and learn how to execute these tricky treadmill fails. Enjoy:
7. The Copycat
When someone does something impressive, something that you have no chance of ever doing better than them, what is left for you to do? Well, if you’re the altruistic kind, you can make their achievement seem that much more awesome by failing spectacularly at the same exact thing. Make sure you follow directly in their footsteps, so that your epic fail is immediately comparable to their stellar performance. They will love you for it.
6. The Circus Act
If you’re planning on entertaining your friends by smashing your face into a running treadmill, you can’t afford not to use a prop. Be creative. Stilts are perfect. In the absence of stilts a bike will do nicely. However, you must make sure the bike doesn’t present an obstacle for your face-plant. You don’t want props interfering with the act, you want them to enhance it.
5. The Dancer
Whoever said “music helps your treadmill workout” clearly didn’t take that point far enough. Everything is better with music. So it’s only natural that the musically gifted among you will want to incorporate a dance into your fail routine. With this one you can really put your ass into it. Literally. Make the treadmill a part of the experience. Take the concept of “breakdance” to a new level!
4. The Fitness Guru
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Occasionally, however, two rights make one horrible wrong. It’s just like the age old-wisdom claims:
“One piece of exercise equipment is good. Two pieces of exercise equipment are better. Two pieces of exercise equipment used simultaneously may result in severe head trauma”
3. The Gitness Furu
Who said there’s only one way to combine a treadmill and an exercise ball? Shame on them! Here’s how you use these same two props creatively.
2. The Impatient
Not all of us have the time to plan the perfect fail. Some of us have busy schedules and can’t go around acquiring props or learning complex dance routines to make our fails great. And that’s perfectly OK. If you’re a man or woman of action – just go straight for the fail. By the time others are only just making their way to the treadmill your face will already be intimately acquainted with it!
1. The Vengeful Hulk
It’s completely understandable that, after years of witnessing treadmills embarrass humans, there’ll be one man who will stands up to this injustice. If that man is you – pay attention. This is how you systematically and utterly disassemble a treadmill, conclusively proving that you’re not to be messed with.
Bonus Clip
All of the above fails have a common thread: they all involve humans and each and every one of them gives up right after the fail. Strangely, all it takes for us weaklings to say “I quit!” is having our faces smashed into the floor at high velocities. And here we have a dog who, after failing hilariously, not only dusts himself off and goes right back to the treadmill, but does so while barking triumphantly. If this doesn’t convince you that the dogs are our superiors, then their inevitable takeover of the planet in 2018 surely will! Woof woof!
Nest Expressed 