When the birthday requirements are over the top

We definitely deserve some form of special treatment from our loved ones on our birthdays, and if we are lucky enough, we get it. Having said this, some people demand a little bit more than special treatment and command week-long tributes, constant attention, praise, and presents. All the while believing those requirements are an obligation for the people around them. Beliefs like that are really hard to shake, and that's exactly what happened to the woman who shared this story about her boyfriend's birthday on Reddit.

Some cats are just… fat. 

We fight it, of course. We understand that overly chonky cats are at risk for all kinds of things, and before anything else, we want our cats to be healthy. But some cats… some cats are just chonky. 

We have one of those. Our cat is 11 years old, and she is one large chonk. Now, here we are, writing for ICHC, advocating for cat de-chonkification, and our cat, at home, is large. Hypocritical, right? Well, not exactly. She started turning chonky when she was less than 1 year old, right after she was spayed, and she has been in and out of the vet's about her weight for her whole life. Still on diet food right now, weighing out her food every day, and she is not losing weight, just maintaining it. We tried so hard to get her to lose weight that eventually, the vet just told us that any less food would be unnecessary suffering. "Some cats are just fat," the vet told us, "like people."

So yes, cats that are too chonky, to the point that it hurts their health - that's bad. But cats that are just chonky because they are chonky… hey, all it means is that you have more cat to love. More cat to hug, more cat to smooch, just- more cat, and we think that's pretty awesome. 

OhMyGlobDramaBomb on r/IllegallySmolCats didn't think that their cat was simply chonky. Their kitten was chonky, yes, but that was no big deal. She's the only kitten, with no one to fight for momma's milk. It's the fact that she started walking badly that spooked her owner. So, the owner did the right thing and took her to the vet. And guess what? Mo (short for Mozilla Firefox) is just… fat. 

Sometimes you just have awful friends, ditch them!

We have this thing where we can't admit when one of our friends isn't the good kind. You have that friend who has shown over and over again that they treat you badly or don't care for you, and instead of ditching them, we make excuses. When somebody tells us how they have spoken badly about us behind our backs, we say they must have misunderstood, even though inside we know they did. We feel their awful treatment towards us and do nothing. We want to avoid the confrontation, thinking it will be worse than simply talking. We prefer to be uncomfortable and sad rather than break a friendship of many years, but the truth is that the friendship ended the moment they started being mean to you. We don't want to be the ones making the decision, but we weren't. It was our inconsiderate friend who decided to end the friendship by treating us poorly.

In this Reddit story, we are presented with an example of an awful friend –multiple in this case– that do not care for us or our wellbeing, and for whom we make excuses even though they do not deserve it at all. Instead of admitting that they have a separate group chat where they specified what to bring to the "hike", the user who wrote this story prefers to think that they simply forgot. Even if they did forget to mention the reality of the plan, they are bad friends for being inconsiderate and not thinking about you. Especially if they knew that this user wasn't big in hiking. Not being mindful of your friend makes YOU a bad friend.

We should stop with the excuses and start being honest. That friend –yes, that one that you are thinking about right now– is not good for you and is not a good person. Either talk to them and explain how you feel or ditch them, but DO NOT carry a friendship just because of nostalgia.  
 

Have you ever been snuggle-trapped? You know, when your kitty is snuggling on your lap, and you're stuck there? 

Cats don't always choose the worst moments to be affectionate, but when your legs are falling asleep, and you're acutely aware of your last bathroom breaks, the cuddliest kittens will take the oppawtunity to strike. Kittens aren't always mean little creatures who bite your ankles in your sleep; sometimes they're the sweetest, sleepiest angels, but that, of course, is only when you are in a desperate hurry to get to work or you have something burning in the kitchen. 

But you know the rules, and so do I; when a kitten is asleep on your lap, a true cat lover cannot be the one to disturb them. Thus, you are 100%, irrevocably snuggle-trapped. Enjoy the ride, my friend. 

Kittens are funny little creatures. One minute, they're letting you pet their heads and swirl their tiny tails around your index finger, and the next moment, they're gremlins. I'm not talking about the cute kind of gremlins that cause mischief and giggle about it afterwards, no no no, I'm talking about full-blow, kitten evil. Kittens in gremlin mode are destructive beings, capable of eating an entire pothos plant without warning, scaling the curtains without care, and knocking every piece of glassware off the counter, all in one fell swoop. 

Mighty as a meowzer is, they're always as strong as their weakest moment, which, for a kitten, is kind of never. 

Kittens are never weak and they are never to be underestimated. They are adorable, for sure, with their big eyes and their tickly whiskers, but when you turn your back on a sweet, sleeping kitten, they activate gremlin mode. Ye be warned, fellow cat lover, for when it comes to kittens, the rollercoaster of craziness is one ride that you can't escape. Once you're on the kitty train, hold on tight because that 3-pound wonder is going to give you a run for your money, right before, of course, falling asleep on your lap right before you're supposed to get ready for bed…

How many times, on average, do employees get blamed for their manager's mistakes?

What does it take for a manager to be asked about a mistake, and for them to say, "It's actually [this employee]'s fault," even though it was clearly the manager's mistake?

Honestly, we imagine it doesn't take much. It seems like managers see their employees as the perfect tool to use whenever they need to pin the blame on someone. They never want to own up to their mistakes, and they know most employees won't argue against their own manager's claims, even if they are completely wrong.

Luckily, some employees refuse to back down when something like this happens. They won't let their managers get away with their own incompetence, and they are willing to fight to prove that the fault for an issue is not their own. They have to do it carefully, and in a manner that won't get them in trouble, but those who do it cleverly can achieve something that most employees only dream of: Retrebuition.

The manager in the story shared below on Reddit's r/revengestories thought he could get away with blaming late reports on his employee, but he didn't know who he was messing with. While this employee was in charge of submitting the reports, they couldn't do that without the entire team's own information, which the manager repeatedly sent in late. Sometimes he would even send it after the deadline, which forced the employee to send the report later than every other team.

After many failed attempts to get the manager to send the information in time, the employee decided to build a tracker that would provide solid information about when each employee sends in their data, and when every single action regarding the report is taken. With the help of this tracker, the employee could prove at any time that the delays were caused by the manager and that they themselves did everything right, every step of the way.

It was long before the employee used this exact tracker in a meeting that finally put the manager in his place…

Having a horrible boss can be reason enough to hate your job.

Bosses sometimes are great leaders who walk you through your career path and teach you how to move forward, and sometimes they just teach you how to deal with awful people by being awful. Managers are a big part of every job, even if they aren't controlling every move you make. They are still the person you report to and your direct line to higher-ups. If you don't only have a job but also want to build a career out of it, it's really important to have a good professional relationship with them. If that is not your case, you need that kind of relationship anyway to avoid getting fired.

In this Reddit story, we are presented with not only a horrible boss who gets changed into a worse one, but also with someone who is misogynistic and a stone in this employee's foot. He is not only not helpful and present, but also he is not sharing important information with this user, leaving him out of the loop and making his career path unable to proceed as it's supposed to. Because that is the thing about bosses: it does not matter if they are good or bad at their job. You still have to obey them and put up with them. The only way out is renouncing, and well, that is not always an option.

But what is it with all these bosses who are really bad at their job? Is this on purpose? Did they get the position because they knew someone and not because of qualifications? Is there a point in your career where you can just give up because you are a manager? Are these people really good at pretending that they are performing well even though this is not true? Maybe all these companies are missing some kind of survey where employees could explain what they think about their managers anonymously, so the people in human resources can be on top of bad bosses. But well, that is only a suggestion. In the meantime, most people still have to put up with useless bosses. 

The best way to start Friday morning is with a cup of coffee and a side of cat chaos. 

It's the last day of the week, people, and we just need to survive. As always, it has been a long one. As always, there was chaos, there was stress, and there were not nearly enough pettable cats around to compensate for that. All day, every day, we sat in our office, just daydreaming about coming back home and cuddling with our cats. Of course, we dream about that every day, no matter what we are doing, but especially when we are at work, looking at these cute pictures of cats that are not ours. 

There isn't a lot we can do to make Caturday come faster. We can saydream and take breaks and socialize with other humans or whatever, but the week just drags on. There are always responsibilities to keep up with. Always things to do that we wish we could postpone but can't. But we try. With the best of our abilities, we try to stay sane and as happy as pawssible, so we can work hard and bring you all the cat meme collections your heart could ever desire. Like this one. 

On a Friday like today, when the alarm is extra loud, the clock is extra slow, and everything just feels more frustrating than it should, the one thing that we need more than anything is a whole bunch of cat memes. It is indeed that simple. Cat memes, to us, are like a spoonful of cat comfort and cat chaos all at once. They feel like being at home with our felines. They give us strength - the meowtivation to finish this week on the right paw. And that is not something to be taken for granted. 

A worker loses their position during a company restructuring, only to discover nearly identical vacancies advertised shortly afterwards. It became clear to them that their "eliminated" position was simply being renamed so they could try to hire someone for cheaper.

Times of economic hardship and tough job markets bring uncertainty, where the only thing that is certain is that whatever you were told in the exit interview wasn't the full picture. The reality is, however, that whatever the reason, the work isn't simply going to go away, and the business thinks they can get the work done elsewhere for cheaper.

Of course, with the way these types of things go, the managers making the decision don't usually understand the work itself and vastly underestimate the skills and knowledge required, but while the company struggles, they get bonuses and then a golden parachute while they sail off to greener shores to do the same again.

Sometimes, the cat distribution system doesn't give us a break. 

Our pets mean the world to us. People who don't grow up with pets or have them as adults may underestimate the seriousness of our relationship to our pets. When we lose a pet, it's an immense grief. It's the loss of someone we love, and memories that we have to put in a place of ephemeral feelings. In Reddit's r/CatDistributionSystem, someone's soul cat, Snickers, sadly passes away. Her brother runs away from home, and she becomes anxious. They go out together to look for him, but she gets scared and a car accidently hits her. She passes in her loving owner's arms, and he cries like he's never cried before. He doesn't know how to let go of this pain when he goes to a friend's home for comfort. 

In a moment that will live indelibly in his mind, the friend's mom happens to be giving away kittens. She gently walks up and hands him a kitten, not knowing the state that he's in. The universe has a strange way of evening things out. How could he say no to an adorable kitten in his arms on the same day he had to say goodbye to a soulmate? So he keeps the kitten though he's mixed up with feelings of guilt and grief. This kitten will help him through the loss, and he names her Suki, which is the original name he was going to give Snickers. More than anything he wants the world to remember Snickers. Read the full story below. 

Strict parents raise rebellious children.

Do you remember the girl in your class who was overcontrolled by her parents and couldn't attend sleepovers or birthday parties, so she started to feel left out because they stopped inviting her. In her teens, she started sneaking out and doing things that were almost too much, but her parents still saw her as the controlled kid she used to be. Till someday you realize that what she's doing and the activities she engages with are far more than what normal teens who didn't have controlling parents in the first place are doing. So you start to think that being controlled was actually useful, as she is far worse than you because she learned how to sneak around. You were just going to parties while she was leaving the state. Was it worth it? And you meet back as adults, and you hear that she doesn't talk to her parents at all anymore. Was it worth it? Well, I don't think so.

In this Reddit story, the user pretended to be a rebel teenager who entered some heavy business while actually being a normal teenager. She pretended just to show how her mother was searching her stuff without permission and getting involved in her business to show how awful and problematic a teenager she was being. The thing is, she wasn't. It was an act she created to prove the lack of privacy that there was in her house. Even if it wasn't her intention, she really proved the phrase "strict parents raise sneaky children". She started being sneaky because she wasn't allowed to do anything, even though she wasn't actually sneaking anything. But all that pretending made her able to hide her real life from her conservative mother.

As we predicted in the first paragraph, she ended up separating herself from her mother. She did not talk much to her in her adult life, especially after the wedding and the falling apart. But she felt so overcontrolled, having even a therapist who talked to her mother about what they talked about, that when she had the age to stop contact, she did. Her conversation became superficial to avoid the judgment of her mother.

Maybe if the mother had been more comprehensive and trustworthy, the daughter wouldn't have had to lie to her at all. She could have told her everything and been a normal teen who does some bad things, but still nothing dangerous, because they respect their parents and themselves. Better than being an overprotective parent is to be an understanding one.

 

Surprise kitten!

The element of surprise is everywhere in life. There's nothing that's eternally stable or cemented. You can plan and plan, and the unexpected will always happen. Like in Reddit's r/CatDistributionSystem, a stray mama cat has babies on a big property that's shared by two families. The family next door adopted the whole litter of kittens, all 5 of them. Then the next day they get the most pleasant surprise of their life – Ghost, a 6th surprise kitten. They found him under the garage the day after the family took all the kittens. This little adventurer must have wandered off before the family could see him. No one knows what truly happened, but they're all elated at the 6th kitten. They decided to adopt him and all his beauty, but he'll be splitting his time between his new owners and his grandparents next door. He won the cat lottery. 

The term hero gets tossed around a lot, but if you ask us it is a term used to describe those who stand for the voiceless, who ignore societal expectations and stand in the way of injustice. And that is exactly what our cat loving hero managed to do in this story.

Reddit's r/kittens subreddit is a place where cat lovers converge to fawn over cute kittens, show off their latest cat child and every now and again to share a tale of great intrigue and wonder. And the story that we have lined up for you today is an example of the latter. Telling the tale of a young lady who is especially fond of felines and so much so that she has rescued upwards of 20 of them and feeds and cares for them on a daily basis. So you can imagine her horror and shock when she happened to come upon a teenager with a terrified kitten in his hand about to be thrown into a trash can. She didn't stop to think, or consider what might happen next, fully focused on saving that kitten from a fate it did not deserve.

Words were exchanged and voices were raised, but the only thing that mattered to her was that this tiny feline would know no more harm. And with all of her might she plucked the kitten from the boy's hands and ran home as fast as she could. Upon arriving she was greeted by her mother who of course welcomed the arrival of a new tiny feline. But the way that her cat colony at home responds to the new arrival, well that is the shining jewel of this story, which we will leave you to find out for yourself. So go forth and enjoy this story of heroism and feline love. 
 

A retail employer paying $16 an hour recently determined that this generous compensation package should also include the privilege of installing an app on workers' personal phones

An app that (I hope your'e sitting down for this) tracks their precise location around the clock, monitors nearby bluetooth devices, transmits data in the background, and continues sending information even when closed, which, to be fair, is a pretty comprehensive surveillance setup for a job that takes place entirely inside one building, never involves driving anywhere, and ends the moment an employee walks out the door to go live their private life that the company now apparently needs constant updates about.

Imagine how packed the parking lot would be for a movie premiere as popular as Toy Story 5. It sounds like the perfect family plan for the weekend, and most people may have arrived early, hoping to grab a good spot. But what nobody would expect is to find a family treating the drive-in premiere like a private campsite for their kids.

Everyone knows that opening night attracts a lot of people, and nobody wants to spend the evening circling the lot to find somewhere to park, or worse, to end up without a parking spot. Well, a man arrived at the crowded drive-in with his wife and kids and began looking for an open space. When they thought they had found one, they noticed a table, chairs, food, speakers, and various belongings. There was basically a family picnic set in the parking spot. They seemed to be preparing for a camping trip instead of a movie night. And then, the dad's explanation made the situation even more absurd: the space wasn't meant for a vehicle, it was for the kids to play… At a packed drive-in… On opening night. 

Apparently, this family felt entitled to claim an additional parking space so their kids would have more room to run around. And not to mention the absurdity of the idea of kids playing between cars in the first place. A playground with moving cars doesn't sound safe to me.

After all, Toy Story 5 may be a family movie, but a parking lot is still not a private backyard. Parking spaces are meant for cars, not for picnic tables. And by the way, you might be forgetting the reason everyone came in, which is to watch the movie. 

Some days ask too much of us. It's harder to stay calm while the world keeps adding more noise. On days like that, we don't always need a big solution. Sometimes, we need something small. Something really small that has whiskers, expressive eyes, a few teeth, maybe only 4 teeth will do, tiny paws, and absolutely no idea of how emotional support it is providing. No idea of anything at all. Yes, I'm talking about smol felines. These smol cat memes will make everything feel less heavy today. Take them with you. They could fit into your pocket.   

There are some days when only a tiny cat can bring us the kind of comfort we need to survive in this world. And they are here to achieve their mission. 

No, you don't need a full life transformation. Not a twenty-step wellness routine that requires a change of habits, a water bottle, a notebook, and a change of personality. No. You just need a tiny cat meme. I promise you'll feel better after scrolling through these memes. 

These smol cats are here to teach us a little lesson. They don't wait until they're bigger, stronger, or wiser to do big things in this world. With their tiny bodies, they bring us so much comfort that we can't even explain how it happens. But it does. They don't solve our problems, but somehow, they still help. They make us smile at something simple and small. So even if they're soft, that doesn't mean they're insignificant. They may be small, but they take up space, and they know they deserve love, attention, treats, and a sunny place to nap. 

So yes, softness can take up space. Small things can bring us comfort. And a tiny feline is more than enough to reset a tired human heart. 

Why do cats always choose the box over the expensive bed?

Every cat owner has lived through the same moment. You spend money on a cozy bed, a fancy toy, or an elaborate cat tree, only to watch your furry roommate ignore all of it and dive straight into the cardboard box it came in. Somehow, that's the real prize.

There must be an unwritten rule in the feline universe that every empty box deserves immediate inspection. It doesn't matter if it's tiny, oversized, or falling apart. If a cat can fit inside, even barely, they'll settle in as they've just moved into a luxury apartment.

The funniest part is how seriously they take it. One minute they're cautiously inspecting the edges, and the next they're completely committed to their new cardboard kingdom, acting as though they've claimed the most valuable piece of real estate in the house.

That's exactly what makes these photos so entertaining. Every cat has its own technique, its own impossible-sized box, and its own expression of absolute satisfaction. They're simple moments, but somehow they never stop making us smile, and honestly, we wouldn't want it any other way.

Most of us, when we see or hear the phrase "you are in my seat" without hesitation, think of a Karen. Well, today is not the case.

If you were to buy a train or plane ticket that shows the assigned seat in which you have to sit, but when you get there, you see it's been occupied. What would you do? Would you kindly ask the person sitting there to move? Would you start a scene by saying that a disrespectful person sat where they shouldn't? Would start nicely, but as soon as the situation escalated, you would call a cabin crew? Would you fight? What would you do?

In this Reddit story, the user chose the calmest and put-together choice. Ask nicely. If you don't want to seem like a Karen, I would highly suggest this one. Not only did she talk to the person in her seat with amability, but also that person complied without hesitation. No argument, no scene, no cabin crew needed to get involved. It was peaceful and decent –as it should be. But without any real cause, her husband started to confront her out of nowhere for supposedly being disrespectful –as if!

She then confronted back saying that if he was sitting in a seat that wasn't his assigned one and somebody came and said he was in their seat, he would move without hesitation as well, and never take it as an attack or remotely disrespectful. This just shows the double standard her husband has and the no second thought on criticizing her, even though he wouldn't if anybody else did as she does.

These relationship issues sometimes seem dumb because they are started by something unimportant, but, on the inside, they end up showing a character trait from one of the members of the couple that isn't nice. In this case, the discussion is not really about the seat but about how the husband judges her and has a double standard when it comes to her. 
 

When a delivery company's driver decided that a $30,000 shipment of specialized audio equipment needed to be greeted with a kick into a steel gate, he probably did not expect to end up on the news, but then again, neither did the company's complaint department, which reviewed the surveillance footage, opened a case, closed it within days without a word, and apparently considered the matter fully resolved until a WAFB9 crew showed up and asked why a business owner was still waiting for someone to care.

The World Cup has been noticeably viral since it started, but one key thing that is not talked about enough is the power it has to create thousands of memes with each match.

The FIFA World Cup is a huge event that takes place every 4 years and, in this case, features 48 nations competing for a trophy that crowns your country as the best at football (also known as soccer in the US). This year, teams are playing 104 matches in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. This last country was not usually known for its football team, but since player Lionel Messi started playing for Inter Miami, the game has caught a lot of attention from locals. This has also made some people interested in the World Cup altogether. This became kind of a funny gig, as the first matches of the tournament are being played in the US, and a lot of the residents have never taken an interest in this game, and now they are surprise as how other nations are living these games.

In other countries, people wait 4 years to see their team win, and when the time comes, they are not relaxed. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, England, and France stop everything that is going on just to see their nation play. Nobody works for two hours, nobody gets out of the house, nobody talks during the game. These rules that may seem silly are just showing how important these games are for some people. They are almost sacred.

If you aren't the biggest football fan but want to get into the gist, I wouldn't recommend that you read the rules and try to learn everything. I would just tell you to turn on the TV and watch whichever match is taking place. And, if you have the chance, look for a commentator that speaks Spanish, even if you don't understand them, the emotion in their voices is going to tell you have to feel during the game.

But also, as a way to get you into the loop, or even if you are already watching every single match, here are some memes that have appeared since the Cup started. 
 

Day in and day out us feline pawrents are being constantly reminded that our cats are in fact not our biological children. Something that we know not to be true, but nonetheless something which irks us and hurts deep inside. So today we put an end to the nay sayetrs with this cute collection of cat children who are undeniably their pawrent's biological children.

Whether your cat child comes into your life as a kitten or as an adult, as soon as the bond is created between the two of you, there is no other way to describe the relationship other than that of a mother and baby. When they cry we come running, when they are hungry we feed them and when they are crabby we play with them. Sure the toilet functions are slightly different, although similarly disgusting, but the point remains, they are not all too dissimilar from one another. Which is what makes this denial of pawrenthood so frustrating as we go through just as much drama as hooman baby parents, if not more. We would love to see a baby scale your cupboard at three in the morning while knocking over two vases only to sit atop the cupboard singing the song of its people. And then just to kick things up a notch they decided to leap straight onto your face giving you the fright of your life while all you wanted to do was sleep peacefully. We'd like to see a hooman baby parent manage to cope with that and then still go to work the next day.

So for all you feline pawrents out there who are feeling underappreciated, unrecognized and marginalized by the hooman baby having people of this world we hope this cute collection of cat children will fill you with the confidence to claim that your cat child is indeed your biological flesh and family.