She's a tad too much!

People need to learn how to say no. It's important and even therapeutic. Having a conversation where someone asks you something and you respond no, and your reasoning is a GOOD conversation. You don't have to say yes to any dumb offer that life throws at you. You are allowed and entitled to say no, even without giving an explanation. A question isn't a demand. It is a possibility that you are the one in charge to determine if you want to accept or deny. Nobody can force you to accept. You have every single right to simply say NO.

So, next time you get hit with some weird request that you hate and want to deny, do it! Nobody can force you to do ANYTHING. Say no, own your response, and be free from what other people dictate for your life. Be the one who handles the direction of your life. Choose wisely, however you want. Don't be like the people in the story below. Don't doubt. Just say what you really think about the offering someone just offered you. Say that you do not want to do it, and that's it. Once you do, you will realize what it is to be free. And also how saying no is not really a big deal. You are entitled to that! 

I'm sensitive to the smell of stinky hands.

Nobody wants to be a micromanaging coworker. It's one thing to be a micromanaging manager. It's not an ideal management style, but at least their employees are managed by the person who is supposed to manage them, not by someone else. When you're an equal to your coworker, you should not be going around telling them what to do about basically anything. If they smell bad, you should tell HR so they can address it professionally. If they're just plain annoying, there is very little you can say in the workplace that can actually fix that problem. If they're bad at their job, it's not like you can fire them! You might feel uncomfortable telling your manager that they aren't picking up the slack, because maybe that's not your call to make. The best thing you can do is just be friendly with your coworker and hope that they aren't a total disaster. 

Sometimes there are things that need to be addressed with your coworker that aren't as easy as asking them to pick up a shift for you. They might be saying a lot of unprofessional things that make the workplace uncomfortable. They might talk so much about unimportant things in your open-concept office that it's impossible for you to focus on the work that actually needs to get done. In cases like these, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to talk to HR. I know people say HR is there to protect the company, not the employees, but I highly doubt an HR professional will fire someone for mentioning a coworker who smells so bad they can't focus on work. If anything, they're probably not the only ones complaining about this issue if it's as bad as they say. The employee in this story desperately needs to talk to HR about his coworker, who wants him to stop washing his hands with scented soap because she is sensitive to the smell. 

Taking good pictures of black cats can be quite a challenge. 

Something that every black cat owner learns very quickly is that taking cute pictures of black cats… is a challenge. And it's not because they are not cute. We see them every day. We know that black cats are adorable. Their expressions, their itty bitty black paws, their striking eyes. We see it. Our phones just… have a hard time capturing it. And more than that, for some reason, black cats seem to always find the darkest spot in the house and decide that spot is their favorite one. 

Therefore, not only do our phones have a hard time capturing our black cats' features, but when we take a picture of our black cat on a dark surface, it's like the cat is not even there at all. And although that can be a bummer when you want to capture your cat being cute on camera, it also gives us some of the most iconic camouflage cat pictures ever. No one does cat-mouflage quite like black cats. And every black owner knows that too. So, we asked you - our cat-loving audience - to send us some of your best black cat cat-mouflage pictures, and like always, you did not disappoint. 

We all cope with rejection in ridiculous ways

Maybe this is a hot take, but not everything we believe needs to be true. If we hold a belief that reinforces our self-esteem and doesn't harm anyone, is it really that bad?

I was talking about this the other day with a friend; she was telling me about this guy she dated who accused her of 'being afraid of love' when she left him, a thing that, according to my friend, wasn't true (otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this to make a point).

And she was reflecting on the kind of things we tell ourselves when somebody rejects us, only to keep our self-esteem intact while we process what we just lost. Those things can range from 'she (or he) is afraid of love', 'she loves me, but she doesn't consciously know it', 'he is going through a lot right now, and that's why he didn't fall in love ', or 'I was the one who got away'.

To me, as long as we're not trying to convince the other person of our narrative, or bothering them in any way or form, it's not that horrible to have a somewhat false belief or a petty outlook on some things.

Most of the time, as the initial sting fades away, we can casually accept that the other person didn't want us that much, and that's it.

Plus, 'The one that got away' is a controversial concept because most of the time, if we have someone who got away, we've mainly kept them as a fantasy, and we don't actually know if being with them in real life is as fantastic as we imagine. The fantasy creates the allure.

Either way, this Redditor has a completely different opinion on the topic, so let's read it! I also want to know what you think.

When bringing a cat to a shelter, it is crucial to look up that shelter's policies. 

Cat shelters, generally, are beautiful places. They are places full of the kindest people with the best of intentions. People who want to take care of cats who need their help the most. People who want to find as many cats forever homes as possible. We look at shelters as safe places, places that we recommend people bring cats to - if they rescue a cat and can't keep it or if they need to surrender a cat for any reason. Shelters are better than abandoning a cat in need on the street. Right? Almost. 

No-k*ll shelters are the ones that you actually want to look for. These are the places where euthanasia is used as a last-last resort, only if the animal is suffering and cannot be helped. Those are places where, even if funds are low and adopters are not coming, euthanasia will not be used on a healthy animal. In our minds, when we write about cats being surrendered to shelters, we always assume it's a no-k*ll shelter that they are being brought to. We do it not because we don't know better, but because it makes us feel better to ignore this issue. Bringing a cat to a shelter is better than dumping it outside. It gives them an actual chance. 

But the problem is there, and "k*ll shelters" exist, unfortunately. That's where today's story is set. In a place like that. But even in places like that, good people exist. And the healthy cat that was saved from euthanasia in this story was saved by one of these good people. 

Everybody makes mistakes, they are truly measured by how they deal with the aftermath.

Judging someone because of a mistake they made is not really fair. You can't expect people to never make any mistakes. We are all humans, and a misstep here and there is bound to happen to every single one of us. How we view mistakes, learn from them, and try to fix them is what others should judge.

When someone is unable even to recognize their fault, we tend to criticize them for it. Grown adults should be able to look a mistake in the eye and admit they are to blame for it. Furthermore, we expect people to do what they can to fix the problem they caused by making the mistake. Even if they fail, it's the thought that matters; it is the attempt to right a wrong that proves that people can do better.

Which is why, when the HR agency in the story below made a mistake, the employee wasn't quick to judge them for it and waited to see how they would handle the aftermath.

It all started when this employee put in a time-off request for July and noticed that it took a long time for it to be acknowledged. Still, since the employee had enough documentation for the vacation request, they took the time off with their boss's approval and returned to work immediately after. However, the day the employee came back, they noticed that their card wasn't working, and no one could figure out the issue. Checking their email, the employee found out that they had been fired because HR forgot to enter their time off in the system, which led the agency to believe the employee was simply missing days of work without approval. 

With no one able to address the mistake, the employee had to pack up and leave. However, it wasn't long before the agency called them to own up to their mistake and asked them to come back to work. Should the employee comply, or is that mistake too grave to forgive? Scroll down to find out more.

Starting fall pawfectly equals a warm cup of coffee, a fluffy sweater, and a bunch of heartwarming cat memes. 

There is a certain magic that comes with the arrival of fall. The leaves begin their colorful transformation, our cats get cuddlier than they ever were during summer, and suddenly, everything feels like an invitation to get cozy. Fall is all about sharing soft blankets with cats and embracing the gray, cold weather. Not everyone likes it, we know. But we kind of do. It's the best season for slowing down a little and enjoying the small things.

Fall mornings are practically made for scrolling through wholesome cat memes. The world outside gets cooler and rainier, and here we are, settled in with our hot cocoa, enjoying a little collection of feline silliness in our time, in our warm home, where everything feels… right. There are some things about the internet that are still good, friends, and cute cats and cat memes are pretty much all of them. Everything else, we can do without. But we could never go even one day without our collection of cat internet goodness. Thank god that everyone else agrees too. 

Should a boss have a say in how an employee spends their lunch break?

While time that is off the clock is technically the employee's own, there is no denying that there are probably going to be some limits on how they can spend lunch. Most employers are going to frown at somebody who takes longer than they are supposed to, and they probably shouldn't be doing anything that is going to affect their ability to work when they come back from their break. 

That being said, work life and the corporate world in particular are full of rules about how employees should act and present themselves if they want to succeed, and a lot of them are not all that sensible or fair. Office politics goes far deeper than just avoiding any massive drama; it seeps into every aspect of a role, even the stuff that feels like it shouldn't matter. 

This is something that can be a struggle to adapt to for those who do not have a lot of experience with it. However, the nature of the business is that they are probably going to learn has some serious consequences. It is just the way that corporate life works.

At 23, she's paying grown-up rent without getting the grown-up freedom.

This girl is in a tight spot… no question she reached out to the community in r/Advice to see if someone can help her figure out her at-home living situation. According to her statement, she's 23 years old, working a full-time job of 40 hours a week, and makes a little over 2k every month. Her parents are charging her $1,200 every single month so she can live at home… that's an insane amount of money for her salary and for still living at her house.

Now, the issue here is that she really wants to move out, but because of how high the rent is, she can barely save any money.

She not only pays that huge amount of rent, but also has her car payment, insurance, phone bill, and she has to buy groceries for the house twice a week. Up until now, she had managed to save only $300, and we all know that's not enough for anything… not a deposit and nothing really to access an apartment.

If you ask me, I think the bigger issue is with the parents, honestly.

To begin with, what's the point of charging your kids that big amount of money? I'm not sure what they're doing with the money, but they are literally holding her daughther back in life. They know they are charging her more than half her salary and still expect her to pay even more money. This looks like they are retaining her and enabling her to get her own place. 

At the same time, I'm not sure what the relationship is between them. Maybe it would be a solution for her to talk to them about lowering the amount of rent until she can save enough for a deposit and finally move out. Some Redditors suggested that she could move to a shared house or apartment and rent one room. At least to get out of the house and be able to save more money. That sounds like a good idea to me!

Nothing destroys household peace faster than one cat looking at another cat slightly wrong.

Living with multiple cats means accepting that peace can disappear at any moment, usually for reasons no human could possibly understand. One minute, your kitties are peacefully sharing the couch like the best of furriends. The next, somebody puts one paw in the wrong place and suddenly you've got ringside seats to the feline fight of the century.

There's usually a warning before the paws start flying. One cat stares. The other stares back. Ears slowly flatten, tails start twitching, and neither party is willing to surrender an inch of territory. You can practically hear dramatic Western showdown music playing in the background. Then somebody throws the first smack, and it's officially on.

Cat fights have everything you could want from quality entertainment: dramatic tackles, rapid-fire paw slaps, surprise attacks, bunny kicks, and enough cattitude to fill an entire wrestling arena. Sometimes the reason for the disagreement is obvious. Someone stole the favorite sleeping spot, got too close to dinner, or dared to receive more attention from the hooman. Other times, the crime appears to be looking in another cat's general direction.

And while these feisty felines probably think they look absolutely terrifying, photographs tell a very different story. Catch a kitty mid-battle and suddenly nature's fierce little predator looks completely ridiculous. Mouths are hanging open, paws are frozen in bizarre positions, bodies are twisting in ways that shouldn't be physically possible, and at least one participant looks deeply surprised by how the situation has unfolded.

The funniest part is how quickly the beef can disappear. These sworn enemies can spend five minutes throwing paws before casually walking away, grooming themselves, and acting like nothing happened. By bedtime, they might even be cuddling again.

Apparently, feline grudges have a very short shelf life. Good thing, because there's always another fight scheduled for tomorrow.

The Cat Distribution System took two years to make this delivery, but Miso needed less than a minute to know she was home.

Some people wait years for the Cat Distribution System to finally notice them. After two years of patiently waiting for an assignment, one hopeful cat lover finally got theirs, and apparently the CDS decided to make the delivery impossible to ignore.

A tiny stray suddenly scurried across their backyard and latched directly onto their pants. Naturally, they stopped to give her some pets. That was all the invitation this little girl needed.

She immediately climbed all the way up onto their neck.

At that point, what exactly are you supposed to do? The cat has chosen you. The paperwork is basically complete.

The newly assigned kitten came home and wasted absolutely no time settling in. Despite living outside, she was incredibly affectionate, well-behaved, and completely comfortable with her new hooman. She even curled up with them for an entire night of sleep.

Apparently, this wasn't quite as spontaneous on the kitten's end as it seemed. She was found in the backyard, leading her new pawrent to suspect she may have been watching them for a few days before finally making her move. We love a kitty who does her research before choosing a family.

She's since been named Miso, after miso soup, because her coloring reminded her new pawrent of tofu and soup. We can't argue with that logic.

Miso is playful, ridiculously affectionate, and especially fond of sleeping directly on top of her chosen human. Most surprising is just how quickly she adjusted. There was practically no nervous introduction period at all. Within less than a minute, Miso seemed ready to accept that this was her home now.

After two years of waiting for the CDS to send an assignment, getting a kitten who literally climbed onto her new pawrent and refused to leave feels like a pretty purrfect delivery.

Becoming a first-time mom is a hard job as it is; they don't need us to put more pressure on them.

Motherhood is one of those jobs that last a lifetime. Once someone becomes a mother, there's no turning back. It's a full-time job that will last forever; no quitting, no getting fired. It's one big adjustment to make 

Labor and raising a child are hard enough on their own, and all moms need their family's support to make everything a little bit easier. It's a very confusing and vulnerable time. They are adjusting to their new lives as much as the newborn babies, and they can surely benefit from the other women in the family's experiences. Of course, every mom and every baby is different, so they'll need to find their own way to do things and their own routine. We can't always know what is best for them, but we try to help as much as we can. What we don't know for sure is that they don't need us critiquing them, making snarky comments, or making them feel bad. 

Sadly, a mother-in-law didn't show enough empathy to her daughter-in-law at the moment of having her first baby. They had never had the best of relationships, and the mother-in-law never thought that the woman her son chose was good enough for him. She was never openly antagonistic, just passive-aggressive and a pot-stirrer. When it was time for the son and his wife to have their first baby, the mother-in-law asked to be in the delivery room with them, and she was allowed. However, as soon as the contractions started, she approached her daughter-in-law and said: "I just want to make sure the baby's actually my son's." The young woman was baffled, and since she didn't want to make a scandal, she simply looked at the nurse, who understood the job and took the mother-in-law out of the delivery room. Now, the family is saying the son's wife can't take a joke and that it wasn't such a big deal. She doesn't feel that way, and fortunately, her husband supports her one hundred percent. 

Only in Canada will people give a 30-lb. wild cat a harsh lecture instead of punishing it for stealing from their farm.

Any cat lover knows that cats, no matter how big they are, are still essentially cats. If you put a giant cardboard box inside a tiger's cage, they will not be able to resist sitting in it. If you give a lion a giant tree that feels good to scratch, they will scratch it the same way your house cat scratches their scratching board (or your furniture). But just because big cats still act like our tiny black cats and calicos, doesn't mean that we can actually treat them the same way. I'm not sure spraying a leopard with a spray bottle will actually deter them from doing something; if anything, it might be a one-way ticket to the hospital.

But, that didn't stop one Canadian farmer from scruffing a wild lynx that he caught stealing from his farm (thanks to @phantomdawg's post on X). After catching the lynx red-pawed, trying to eat some of his chickens, he could have hurt or injured the wild animal to "punish" it for attacking his livestock. Instead, though, he picked up the 30-lb. cat by its scruff, the same way you would a naughty house cat, and started lecturing it on its bad behavior. He showed the giant-pawed creature how scared his chickens were, and shamed him for his actions. Later, he drove the lynx to a different location away from his farm, and released him back into the wild.

Cats will be cats, and the guilty look on this lynx's face makes us laugh more than anything we've seen all week. Have a great weekend!

*Before going any further, I must write here that we do not advise interacting with wild animals at all. Please don't go around scruffing wild cats. It's not safe for them, and especially not for you.

Cats are so weird, so wild, and purrfectly unpredictable - and that's exactly why we love them.

I've been a cat lover and owner my entire life. I grew up in a household with cats, when I was an adult I adopted my own cats, and I spend all day at work writing and talking about cats. You would think that I've seen just about everything there is to see from cats, but that's where you'd be wrong. The wonderfully whimsical thing about cats is that they always have some sort of trick up their sleeves, some quirk you've never seen before, or some hidden talent you thought previously impawssible. 

I've seen cats survive snowstorms in the depths of winter, and lost cats find their way back to their owners after more than 9 years. I've seen cats risk everything to give their kittens a better life and flexible felines folded into shapes that don't seem pawssible to the hooman eye. I've even seen cats adopting random animals, like otters, as their family, and cats becoming best friends with horses. But what I've never seen before is what this black cat owner's cat loves to do below.

His cat loves to hang on chairs. Technically, he is hanging, but we like to think of it more like folding his feline body for the purrfect upper back and lower back stretch all at the same time. To us, it looks pawsitively uncomfortable, but we all know that cats are liquid, so purrhaps it feels quite delicious to him. 

As strange as it may seem, we found out through some more research that his cat isn't the only one with his hilarious habit of folding over furniture! It's a thing, and apparently now we're purrmanently obsessed with finding cats that share this wholesomely silly habit.

Does your cat do this too? Or are my cats just the weird ones who don't do it? Scroll down to see all these folded felines below!

Is this story really proof you can't trust any coworker?

Workplaces aren't like any other place; if you have a nasty fallout with a friend from the gym, you can easily switch gyms. If you have a fallout with one of your bosses or coworkers, it's much harder to avoid them, and the fight comes with the anxiety of your income being at risk; ultimately, your survival ends up entangled in the work drama.

When we have a rigid belief system, and something happens in our life that reinforces those beliefs, we tend to write it off as the ultimate proof we needed to justify the way we're living.

I personally don't believe relationships in life should be so formulaic. A lot of people (myself included) have found amazing, lifelong friendships at the workplace.

You should definitely learn to spot behavioral red flags in people, in any place, not just at work, but that doesn't mean distrusting everyone; there are good people out there!

After reading this story, I was left with the impression that this employee already had trust issues, and this particular situation she went through only confirmed her bias, but the conclusion she drew from it is not the only one you can get to, in my opinion.

Maybe this experience isn't telling her to stop trusting coworkers, but telling her to stop trusting shady people.

When this 28-year-old employee asked her boss to communicate his requests and criticisms more clearly and directly, defining duties and performance expectations, it started an escalating series of conversations that resulted in them walking out on the job. Now she thinks she was fired, but her boss is saying she resigned. Either way, the abrupt dismissal was especially confusing given her boss's previous praise of her professionalism, personality, and performance.

Sunday morning allows a slow breakfast and plans that require little effort. Your cat joins you for the naps and the fun. Until evening arrives and Monday starts to appear in every thought, without letting you enjoy the final hours of your Sunday. Preventing you from the Sunday scaries looks like a job for your cat.

Cats don't know that tomorrow is Monday and wouldn't care if somebody explained it to them. Their week is organized around meals, sunbeams, and naps. Sunday is another opportunity to knock over the things you have on your kitchen counters and then sprint through the hallway. 

Feline nonsense interrupts the planning inside your head, and that's how it works to keep you distracted. You can't think about rehearsing tomorrow's meeting if your cat is trying to fit inside packaging designed for an object half its size. We don't know how, but they manage to get in anyway. It's difficult to start worrying about what may happen tomorrow at work if your fluffy friend is meowing at a closed door, asking for your attention, then deciding they're not interested anymore the second you open the door for them. 

Every cat has their method to keep the household distracted. Some sit on whatever their human is trying to use. Others decide it's the perfect time to jump from a high location without checking where they will land. Others will demand your attention even if the activity you're doing requires zero cats. They can also reject the affection you offer when they get tired of it. It's just when they want it and how they want it. Most probably, they'll want it when you're busy doing your laundry or any other household chore. They love being present for those. Cat logic is questionable, but their timing is excellent. Even though they can't help you with whatever you are doing, they are really good at keeping us company. 

 So scroll down for more cats that are claiming a few minutes of your Sunday. You won't be disappointed. Feline silliness is always funny. 

A routine grocery run turned into a surprise kitten rescue when one tiny "squirrel" made a very dramatic entrance.

While driving to the store one morning, a little animal suddenly dashed underneath a car. The driver slammed on the brakes and got out, expecting to check on a squirrel. Instead, they found a tiny kitten screaming her head off and attempting to climb into the undercarriage.

Catching her was not exactly easy.

The approximately 4-to-5-week-old kitten immediately made it clear she had plenty of fight in her. Over the next five minutes, she tried to scale a fence, pooped on her rescuer, and managed to land a pretty impressive bite. Not bad for someone small enough to be mistaken for a squirrel.

Needless to say, groceries were no longer the priority.

The shopping trip quickly became a kitten supply run, because apparently the Cat Distribution System does not care what you originally put on your shopping list. Soon, the feisty little feline was getting her first flea bath and enjoying a lunch of pâté slurry.

With a full belly and the fleas washed away, the troublemaker finally decided she could relax. After all that screaming, climbing, biting, and general chaos, she curled up for a much-needed nap.

And what do you name a kitten whose first interaction with you involves drawing blood?

Rambo, obviously.

"She who draws first blood" might only be a few weeks old, but she's already managed to completely derail a grocery run and earn herself food, supplies, a flea bath, and a safe place to sleep. That's a pretty productive morning for such a smol feline.

The Cat Distribution System really went all out with this delivery: one tiny Rambo, zero warning, several battle wounds, and a grocery trip nobody is going to forget anytime soon.

The kids may not be alright.

Older people have almost always despaired of the younger generation in one way or another. Now that internet culture has amplified everything to do with generational differences, though, things seem to have been taken to another level. First, the millennials got all the judgment for being obsessed with what happened on their phones (never mind the fact that Gen X and Boomers came to be even worse than them in this matter). Then Gen Z promised to be the first fully 'digital native' generation, and we got to see the effects of being raised on brainrot in real time. Now, Gen Alpha is an amplification of that.

We were all just kids once, and no doubt about it, everybody has acted kind of stupid in their time because of their age and lack of experience. However, it is important to show a willingness to learn and grow out of that. While this always comes more easily to some people than others, some are getting worried that the latest generations of teens and young adults are not interested in going in that direction. There is a difference between being inexperienced and just being totally inept.

It seems that no matter the age, no matter how many times they have been warned by hoomans and other cats, cats will always find a way to get stuck up in a tree and in the most inconvenient of perches. Making it impossible for mere mortals to get up there and save them. No, these kinds of moments are for true heroes and sheroes to deal with. And in the case of this story's stuck cat it was a whole firecrew of heroes who turned up to save the day.

Our story begins with a cat named Simba. For one reason or another Simba found himself atop a rather tall tree with no clear way of coming down. More often than not, cats who are on the run from something will make a move like this. But in their panic they will not check to see that the tree they are scaling has a reasonable perch from which they can jump down from later. And so from time to time find themselves committed to climbing the trunk of a tree that has no perch for at least 40 ft. A safe place to hide from a predator but not so safe in terms of coming back down. And so the cat ends up stuck.

At this point the cat's pawrent got a local cat rescue involved, hoping for a gentle hand and a low stress way for the feline to be returned to the ground. But as it would turn out the cat was catatonic and unable to move or feel safe enough to collaborate with the rescue's efforts. Leaving them with only one port of call, the local Fire Department.