If your cat crosses the rainbow bridge before you are ready, sometimes, they use one of their extra lives to come right back to you. 

The idea that cats have nine lives came from somewhere, we don't know where exactly. It's a piece of folklore that developed at some point and stuck with us. Some people attribute this to cats' flexibility and agility, their ability to fall from great heights without harm. Some people attribute it to cats' righting instinct, where they always land on their four feet. And then there is us. We believe that this idea of nine lives comes in the form of reincarnation. 

Okay, let us clarify for a meowment. We believe that reincarnation in cats is real mostly because we want to believe it. I look at my gorgeous senior cat at home, and as I watch her get older and older, as the fear of her crossing the bridge gets stronger and stronger, I believe in cat reincarnation more and more. Because I can't imagine life without her. But we also believe in this because there are simply too many coincidences to dismiss. Today's story is one of them. 

A week after their senior cat suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the rainbow bridge, this owner came across one-week-old kittens. Kittens that were born on the same day their beloved ginger cat passed. And the instant bond they had specifically with the one ginger kitten in the bunch truly made them believe this kitten was a reincarnation of their feline. 

A family entered this homeowner's fenced garden, treated it as a public park, and threatened legal action after being told to leave.

Are we entitled to something just because we want it to be so?

Social media has effectively landscaped the gardens of our minds in the way we think about beautiful locations. No longer are they a place to bask in the glory of a natural or man-made wonder. They're a place to claim and record.

Pull up a chair and make room because the cat is joining dinner tonight.

Cats really do look like tiny little people when they sit at the table. All they need is a plate in front of them and maybe a napkin tucked into their collar. We'd invite them to every meal if we weren't worried about losing half our food in the process.

Eating around a cat requires supervision. Yours may have finished their own dinner approximately 30 seconds ago, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the meal currently sitting on your plate. They need to inspect that too.

Soon enough, a little head pops up beside the table. Then come the paws. Maybe they'll sit quietly and stare until you start feeling guilty. Maybe they'll skip the manners and go straight for a taste. Either way, your dinner now has an audience.

We can't even get mad when they look this cute doing it. A kitty sitting in their own chair deserves to be included in the conversation. Ask how their day went. Tell them about yours. They'll probably respond with a meow and wonder when you're going to stop talking and start sharing.

Family dinners could use more cats anyway. They bring plenty to the table: toe beans, purrs, fluffy faces, and a complete inability to understand why everything on the menu isn't for them.

Just keep one eye on your plate. Those paws may be cute, but they're also quick.

So scoot over and save the kitty a seat. They're part of the family too, and apparently that means showing up for dinner whether they were invited or not.

Now, can somebody please pass the meown course?

Imagine stopping at a convenience store on the way to a doctor's appointment and leaving with one extra passenger tucked into the car.

While her daughter, Tina, ran inside the store, one woman started hearing some seriously loud meows. After getting out to investigate, she traced the noise to the passenger-side rear wheel well. Yep, there was a kitten in there.

Thankfully, Tina managed to get the tiny tuxedo out in about three minutes. Meet Altima, the approximately 7 or 8-week-old kitten who apparently decided regular transportation wasn't exciting enough.

The scary part is that nobody knows where Altima actually climbed aboard. The store was around 15 miles from one home and more than 20 miles from the other. Considering the Texas Panhandle had been dealing with temperatures over 100°F, we don't even want to think about how that ride could have ended. This little tuxie picked a pretty dangerous place for an adventure and got incredibly lucky.

And if a random kitten is going to emerge from your wheel well, having years of fostering experience is about as convenient as it gets. Her rescuer already had everything needed to care for the unexpected arrival. Altima got a bath, had no fleas somehow, went through quarantine, received her first kitten vaccine, and already has her spay appointment planned for October.

Now that the serious stuff is handled, Altima can focus on the important business of being ridiculously cute.

Her personality is still loading, but we already know a few things. She purrs loudly, drools, wants to suck on her hooman's earlobe, and sleeps curled into shapes that have earned her the title of "tuxedo pretzel."

Not bad for a kitten whose day started inside a wheel well and ended with her own foster setup.

Altima definitely chose the most dramatic possible way to get herself rescued.

Nothing ages worse than a sweeping mandate written by someone who skipped the part where they read the actual contracts, is there?

A new executive arrives, decides that "collaboration" requires everybody to sit in the same building, and forgets that paperwork has a way of surviving leadership changes. 

This is the corporate version of announcing that all pets must be dogs, then discovering an employee signed a cat contract 6 years ago. And that HR is not thrilled about retroactive pet policy changes. 

VP must have thought his rule sounded so powerful in an all-hands email. Only problem is he didn't hear how it sounds to somebody who opens a signed form that says, in clear language, "this person's office is their house."

And that's the beauty of taking instructions literally: it forces anyone, leadership role or not, to deal with the consequences of vague wording. "Everyone must work from the office" is decisive until someone asks which office, pulls up the file, and points to a stamped agreement listing a home address as the primary work location. That's why, if there ever was a story fitting for r/MaliciousCompliance, it's this Senior Data Engineer's story.

Because what VP thought was a simple instruction was actually a contract change attempt with legal and budget implications, and nobody wants to be the person who explains why the company owes back pay for a workspace that was never officially changed.

Sometimes, staying inside the box is much more beneficial.

When we start a new job, one of our main objectives is to prove our worth. We want our boss to see our work and feel happy that they hired us. We want to impress our colleagues and show everyone we are valuable employees with a lot to bring to the table.

In reality, that is much easier said than done, but not for the reasons you might think. You can be the best employee in the world, and bring in the most impressive results, and still not get the recognition you deserve. Even worse, some employees would tell you that putting in "better" work will actually lead to the opposite result, going as far as leaving you without a job.

How does that happen? The story below is the perfect cautionary tale.

This employee started a job as a coordinator and immediately noticed that the team was wasting 15 to 20 hours a week on tasks that could be easily automated. So, wanting to improve productivity, the employee built a few templates to help with these tasks and ended up freeing significant time in their work schedule. They imagined that by doing so, not only would they impress their boss, but they would be able to free themselves up for higher-level projects. However, the exact opposite ended up happening. 

Since they reduced the workload so much, their position basically became redundant. This led the boss to tell the employee that they were no longer needed and to fire them. All that hard work only resulted in the poor employee being out of a job.

Should this employee not have created the automation, or should they have kept it a secret so they could do less work but still keep their job? The full story is waiting down below.

We're all familiar with that one hire that no one understands how they got the job.

They don't have the skills, they don't have the qualifications, they don't even have any strings to pull. They simply walked into the business, charmed everyone in the building, and got themselves the job.

That is exactly what the kitten below did.

When this construction crew started working one morning, the last thing they expected was to welcome a new, tiny, fuzzy team member to the crew. But when they heard little meows coming from inside their machinery, they simply could not ignore the cry for help and immediately started working on getting the small kitten out.

They got the whole rescue mission on video, right up until the moment the kitten went flying out of the excavator. When they started sharing the story online, people were instantly enamoured with the brave cat who managed to get herself a job as a construction crew member, even without any skill whatsoever.

We're not kidding. After she got rescued, Sue (short for Komatsu) got her very own uniform, safety hat, and vest, so she could join the team that saved her life. Sue was adopted by a family member of one of the rescuers, and now she visits her friends every week and oversees their construction work to make sure no kitten gets harmed in the process.

Scroll down for the full, absolutely heartwarming story of Sue and her team, and make sure to scroll all the way down to watch the full video.

Tell me: how many of you have been reluctant to interact with a Sphynx cat just because you think they look weird? 

Sphynx cats have that enigmatic look that no other cat has. When we hear that ancient Egyptians revered cats, that is the image of a cat we have in mind: a Sphynx sitting regally on a pedestal, dressed like a Pharaoh, with a bunch of hooman servants at its feet to feed it tuna. I have absolutely no idea whether there was tuna in ancient Egypt, but at least I think they had fish. They must have had fish. Anyway…

Sphynx cats are not like any other regular cat. I have never met one in person, but the experts say that they are usually really affectionate with their hoomans and really playful. They get their name after the famous Egyptian Sphinx, that's true, but I bet that something you didn't know was that they are not originally from Egypt. No, sir, they come from, wait for it: Canada! Can you believe that? Somehow, that information makes absolutely no sense to me. Canada is known to be a pretty cold place, so why would they have a cat with no hair to warm itself up? I'm telling you, it made infinitely more sense to believe they actually came from Egypt. It's hot there; you have deserts, sand, and it would be terribly difficult to keep a cat's fur clean with all that sand lying around. I guess nature likes to play around every now and then with some weird combinations. 

Either way, Sphynx cats deserve more recognition. It's not fair to cast them aside just because they are balding a little. Under those criteria, most of us would have to start casting aside half of our uncles. I'm joking, obviously. Family is still family. And Sphynx cats are still kittens that deserve our love and attention. They can be just as cute and wonderful as any of our regular furry cats. They might not be furballs in reality, but they are in spirit. So here I bring to you some of the cutest photos of Sphynx cats to warm up your heart. Most of them are wearing little sweaters, which makes them look all the more pawdorable! 

You know when cats get into really weird places without explanation? 

We've seen them inside drawers, behind or inside the fridge, inside our wardrobes, in boxes, on top of the roof, and in so many other places! They are like professional contortionists and hide-and-seek players. 

Cats like to feel protected and guarded, so they get into the most secret, hidden corners of the house. They're also really gossipy creatures, so it's natural to find them on top of the roof looking at our neighbor's backyard or plastered against the window to see what's going on in the street. Our purrfect fluffy friends like to hear all the tea; if only they could talk, they would come back to the house to tell us all the hidden details from the neighbors' lives. Yes, they like to know about other people's lives as much as we do. 

As for the laundry thing, our best guess is that they actually like us and are trying to find a place that smells like us so they can feel like we're still with them. We have to go to work, we have to do our groceries and run errands, so we can't be beside our babies all the time. Yes, much against what we think, our feline fluffies actually love us and miss us when we're gone, so they find clothes that smell like us to feel like we're close. They are big old softies on the inside, even if they want to make it look like they're all indifferent and better than us. They are sentimental and clingy as heck when they want to be, and we can't let them forget that! That's why this time we have a collection of cat photos that apparently missed their owners and wanted to take a dive into the laundry basket to feel cozy and warm. We can't blame our furry babies for that, especially now that autumn is starting and we're all looking for a bit of comfort and a bunch of snuggles. Get your laugh ready and your blanket at hand to enjoy these lovely laundry cats! 

Unflappable, nonchalant, calm - cats give us a great example of how to chill out, especially when some of us treat them like a delicate zen bonsai project to decorate.

Seriously, how are cats so calm? Sure, they're not always calm. Some cats catch the zoomies in ungodly hours of the night, going absolutely berserk while parkouring on your ceiling. Some cats can not zip their treat hole for all hours of the day, screaming to get pets, snacks, and to be let in and out freely. It's true that some cats are crazy. But some cats are more zen than a Buddhist monk doing meditation alone in the mountains of Mongolia. They can be so calm that you can stack random stuff on them, and they'd still be completely unfazed. But how?

We think it might be because the cat craze and the cat calm are interconnected. Just think about it… with the example of toddlers. Parents know - when you want to get your 4-year-old to be zonked out when bedtime arrives, you need to spend all their energy during the day. And that's a lot of energy. Well, cats do sleep longer, but what if that's because they craze out all the time when they're awake?

There's not one conclusive answer. But what there is - it's evidence. And we bring it here in the form of silly cat pictures with things stacked on them for you to scientifically analyze. Or, you know, just enjoy and laugh about.

A good meowrning means a hot cup of coffee and some sweet cat memes to go along with it. 

A good morning starts with a good routine. Alarm clock going off at around the same time, food or coffee ready within minutes, our clothes chosen the night before. All of these things are important for a good start to your day. The routine. But the most important thing - the most impurrtant part of our routine - is none of these things. There is one thing that we need each and every morning to make sure we get out of bed on the right paw, and that is simply a whole bunch of cat memes. 

And yes, it really is that simple. A couple of pictures of funny cats first thing when we wake up, and everything else seems a little less difficult than before. A couple of minutes scrolling through silly cat memes while we are drinking our morning coffee will make the whole day sweeter. You don't even need to put time aside for it. Scroll as you drink. It will have way more influence on your morning than you think it would. You're already here right meow, might as well try it. 

Coco was not a fan of the wet intruder that invaded her home and took her favorite spot on the couch. Ironically enough, it was probably Coco who showed "Oscar" (the seal intruder in question) how to get in by following her through the cat doors and straight into the living room!

It's funny to me that cats have a reputation for being cold and unfriendly, because in my expurrience, cats are some of the friendliest creatures around. They love to "adopt" other animals as their kittens, and make friends with wild animals more often than not. Like, when this orange cat became friends with a wild deer, or when this adult mama cat adopted a puppy as her own. Maybe the cats don't like making friends because it ruins their street cred, but friends seem to find them whether they like it or not. I think they might even give capybaras a run for their money when it comes to the number of friends they make per lifetime.

Today's story is no exception. Originally covered by The Guardian, a global news organization that delivers "fearless, investigative journalism," this story is the purrfect example of a cat not intending to make friends, but a friend being made nevertheless. A wild seal was roaming around a New Zealand neighborhood, where it ran into Coco, a marine biologist's cat who was lounging comfortably in the backyard. The seal took interest in Coco (Coco did not take interest in the seal), attempted to defend her hoomans' home from this curious creature, then promptly retreated into the living room via two cat doors.

Much to Coco's dismay, the seal followed Coco through the cat doors and promptly took her favorite spot on the couch. Her hoomans arrived back home and found Coco at their neighbor's house, and the seal wandering around their own home. They named him Oscar, and eventually contacted wildlife authorities to return Oscar to where he belongs. 

Just in case you're wondering, no, Coco still hasn't forgiven Oscar for spooking her. Her hoomans still laugh about it to this day, and she will exact her revenge for this in due time.

Returning from vacation: realness and tips

You did it; you disappeared for a week. You slept like a baby every day, enjoyed the sun, and reached peak overall health and happiness. The action of hopping on a quick online meeting sounds like a distant, dystopian memory, and you forgot what the word 'deadline' even means.

You'd love to stay there, in that dreamlike kind of state, but sadly, nothing lasts, and very soon you'll have to go back to your old, boring job, to your uncomfortable everyday chair, and to the trashy habits you hold on to, only to endure that dull, repetitive lifestyle.

I've fantasized countless times about perpetuating the healthy/happy lifestyle I built over the holidays. To keep enjoying life with a well-rested, nourished body, and a relaxed mind, far away from the noise.

Well, apparently, all that is possible, and this post is about that. It is about techniques to perpetuate that beautiful state for as long as we can.

There are people out there who positively claim they did, and in this post, we choose to suspend our disbelief for a moment and put their tips into practice.

Summer is about to come to an end, and that might be a wonderful thing for those who love crunchy leaves and spooky season, but it has a bittersweet flavor for the ones who enjoy the sun and the overwhelming heat.

At some point, we all have to come back from the holidays, get back to school or work, ditch our shorts, and replace them with layers upon layers of clothing. Suddenly, before you have time to even notice it, you'll be drinking pumpkin spice lattes and holding on to your favorite scarf in the wind.

Knowing all this, let's enjoy whatever's left from the summer and try to extend our post-holiday bliss for as long as we can using these tips people online swear by.

Can you share any other advice for when you come home from vacation? I'm all ears! I'll be needing those.

Cats can win over anyone if they are just given a chance. 

It is a story as old as time. Someone says that they hate cats, then a cat adopts them, and suddenly, they have a new, feline-shaped best friend. Because that is simply what cats are like. It is as if cats have a particular fondness for people who say that they don't care for them. It's like they have an agenda, a desire to prove all humans wrong in one way or another. Because they go after people like this often and in some of the most creative ways pawssible. For CoolDad420Blaze, this cat came to them… with the house they bought. 

Of course, buying a new house comes with enough challenges as is. Finding an abandoned cat on your property that the previous tenant left there is just another layer to the madness of purchasing a new house. And yet, unlike the people who abandoned this feline, the new owner couldn't. They might not have cared for cats personally, but they couldn't throw an innocent creature out of its own home. And so, this person was "forced" into cat ownership. And yes, just as you would imagine, it took this mom who didn't like cats no time at all to change her mind completely and become best friends with this feline she inherited. 

He has no business being on their family vacation. 

How are you supposed to respond to the mean kids at school? The advice "fight back" or "just ignore it" is often touted as a solution, but I don't think either works to end verbal harassment. If you ignore their taunts, they're going to keep going, because they interpret your silence as a sign that although they haven't provoked a reaction from you, they still could. They interpret silence as fury boiling within their victim, and oftentimes, you're right. If you've ever tried to ignore the kid who is picking on you in school, you know how difficult it is to keep it all in. Fighting back doesn't solve the problem either. You are giving them a reaction, which is exactly what they want. It makes them want to harass you more, so you get increasingly mad. If you fight back, it's likely that the school will punish both of you, even though you were the one who was provoked. It's not easy being a kid, especially one who gets mocked by your peers for whatever reason. 

When kids teased me in school, I figured out a foolproof way to get them to stop. Instead of ignoring them or fighting back, I gave them neutral, one-word responses like "cool" or "okay." They wanted to get a rise out of me, and once they realized that it wasn't going to happen and I wasn't seething in silence, the teasing swiftly stopped. That's only one way to do it. Sometimes it's just easier to let the situation ride its course, with the mean kids eventually getting bored of bothering you. 

The teenage girl in this story is still scared of the boy who teased her last year, and she has good reason to be. He has done everything in his power to make her feel scared at school. This boy is her cousin's friend and somehow scored an invite to their family's annual vacation. It was up to her single dad to save the vacation for his little girl, and luckily, he did it. 

If your biggest goal today is getting as comfortable as humanly possible, you're thinking too small. Try getting as comfortable as felinely possible.

Cats have turned being cozy into an entire lifestyle. They don't just take a nap. They locate the softest blanket in the house, knead it to their exact specifications, turn around approximately 47 times, and melt into it until they're basically one with the fabric.

We want that level of peace.

Now that cozy season is making its return, the kitties are thriving. Blankets are back on the couch, beds are getting fluffier, and hoomans are wearing oversized sweaters that conveniently double as cat beds. Every soft surface is fair game.

Some cats prefer the classic loaf, paws tucked away and looking like a freshly baked dinner roll. Others go full purrito and disappear under the covers until you're left wondering where the cat ends and the blanket begins. Then there are the cuddle bugs who skip the middleman and climb directly onto their hooman. Why find your own source of warmth when you have a perfectly good human heater?

We can't say we blame them.

There's something about seeing a cat completely zonked out that makes our own responsibilities seem a lot less important. The laundry can wait. That email will still be there later. There is currently a warm blanket, a sleepy feline, and an open spot on the couch calling our name.

Cats figured out long ago that sometimes you just need to get comfy and call it a day. Maybe they're onto something.

So bring on the blankets, the toe beans tucked under tiny chins, the purrs, and the cats slowly stealing every comfortable spot in the house.

Cozy season belongs to the cats. We're just lucky they occasionally make room for us.

Do younger generations hate tattoos? 

Every generation has its differences. It's part of what makes us interesting to each other. It's why we have so much discourse all of the time. We all grew up differently, in different time periods, and it affects who we are. It's interesting to talk about, because as much as we have in common as humans, we have so much that differentiates us from generation to generation. The most common way we learn about these is in our own families, but what about the interactions outside of that? Do you have to interact with people from other generations at your place of work, and what does that teach you about the world? If you're like me and you're never around children, then you might have no idea what Gen Alpha is up to. I don't really know anyone who is a part of it, but I want to be clued in to the culture, so  I will have to turn to the internet.

Nothing wakes up a classroom faster than someone spotting a cat outside the window. Except when the cat actually comes inside.

Forget whatever was on the lesson plan. There is now a kitty in class, and everyone has more important things to focus on.

Cats have a habit of showing up wherever they please, and schools are apparently no exception. Some wander into classrooms like they've been enrolled all semester, while others hang around campus until students basically accept them as classmates. We'd have paid a lot more attention in school if there was a chance a random feline might stroll through the door.

These cats don't seem remotely concerned about interrupting class either. They'll hop onto a desk, inspect someone's backpack, stroll past the teacher, and settle down for a nap while everyone else is expected to keep working.

Excuse us, but if the cat gets to sleep through math, why can't we?

Naturally, the students are usually thrilled. Suddenly everyone wants the seat closest to the new furry classmate. Even the kid who hasn't raised their hand once all year is volunteering to take the kitty to the office. We see what's happening here.

The cats seem pretty pleased with the arrangement too. A school is basically one giant building full of potential servants ready to offer pets and attention. Add dozens of laps, backpacks to investigate, and lunches that probably smell interesting, and they may never leave.

Back-to-school season can be rough, but getting surprised by a feline classmate would certainly make that early morning alarm hurt a little less.

We just hope attendance gives extra credit for having four paws and showing up without a hall pass.

Sometimes there is no need for a big thing to learn that your friend is not the good kind.

Is hard to end a friendship, but sometimes you just need to accept it and do it. It's hard and sad, but it's the best thing. After a while, you learn to realize when a friend is not the good kind before stuff like the one in the story below happens. You learn to notice the signs. To realize when a friend is actually just an entitled person who loves to use people for their own benefit. And those people should be as far away from you as physically possible. They don't deserve your time, let alone your friendship.

Cutting ties is extremely important when someone is using you. This person who has wronged you will do it again. To avoid it, you will have to be the bad guy and cut any form of link you two have. End the friendship! There is no need for you to maintain a relationship with someone who is so entitled that they only see you for the benefits you can provide to them. Better friends are out there, trust me. Ditch the bed ones!

The middle of the week is upon us once again dear cat loving friends. It is a time to rejoice, it is a time to mourn but most of all it is a time to replace your midweek meowsery with some feline fueled joy that we hope for you to get from these wholesome cat memes we have lined up fur you. Because if you are going to make it not only to the end of this working day, but this working week, you will most certainly need some sweet cats crawling around your mind to do so.

It is a tough time this midweek business, on the one hand you are filled with joy like a cat who has seen a bug in the far top corner of the room. The potential, the excitement, it all begins to overwhelm you and you almost do not know what to do with all the elation until the other hand drops. And when it does you remember that you have had a ton of work piled on your back and you are already struggling to carry that weight. Much like a cat who…ok yeah a cat would never let anything weigh them down, heck most of them don't even like pets. That's how much they reject the concept of being weighed down.

So be like those sassy cattos and do not let the worries and woes of the work week weigh you down. Flick them off like so many cats have done to your hand and instead dunk your head into this cute collection of wholesome cat memes where you can fill your mind with these fluffy felines instead of the noise of the world.