There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats

It has been said; "There are many intelligent species in the Universe. They are all owned by cats"

In these hot and balmy Summer days, as I watch my owners sweat, pant, and gripe about the heat, I have been lying resplendent in various cool places about the house, and have been analysing my owners and other bipeds with respect to their usefulness.

Millions of my fellow felines have acquired these strange and often frustrating creatures. Catty forums are full of posts wondering why we have bothered to grace them with our presence? The only logical answer seems to be that they have opposable thumbs, so are perfect tools for such tasks as opening doors, getting the lids off food cans, all activities that we, despite our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves (Chimps, orangutans et al also have opposable thumbs, but they are nowhere as easy to train).

Unfortunately they have many flaws. They often erroneously assume that there are other, more important activities (working, sleeping, watching TV) than taking care of my immediate needs. Though this is usually dreadfully inconvenient, I have made this work to my advantage by pestering them at opportune moments - I choose several "tried and tested" methods; -

• Sitting on my owners' keyboards while they try and .....qwuqeuerirotioeraghdgz (oooops sorry!), type! 
• Using the stairs as if they were a racetrack - tripping them helps, because they fall faster than I can run, and so get to my bowl more quickly;
• Clawing, meowing, getting my paw under the edge of the bathroom door and “mock” trying to pull the door open when they are doing their most personal of ablutions;
• Since there is no “snooze” button on a cat who wants breakfast, I find that sleep deprivation is very good for owner-training. Between 3:30 and 4:30 is the optimal “owner-waking” time for my first meal of the day. I begin with meowing at one-second intervals for about 5 minutes at the side of the bed (my male owner is the lighter sleeper so I always start with his side first), and if this does not result in them rising in a bleary-eyed-incoherent haze-heading-for-the-kitchen, I escalate to pawing their sleeping face, followed by full-clawed scratching. To avoid suspicion, I vary the scratch site periodically.

Sometimes, my owners have not responded acceptably to my best training efforts, and I have had to resort to punishment. For the amateur, obvious punishments are scratching furniture, eating household plants, etc. I have achieved a subtle advanced level. My particular favourites are; -

• Using my litter tray for number 2s, just as they sit down to a formal supper with guests; 
• Feigning regurgitating a hairball over my male owner’s laptop;  
• Presenting my female owner with the thoughtful “gift” of a recently disemboweled small rodent. If I am feeling particularly aggrieved, said rodent will be barely alive but still capable of jumping frantically around the kitchen floor. 

I have “mixed and matched” my various owners, and in the end most of them are pretty much the same.

They are however, far superior to other “non-owning-or-Cat-hating” bipeds (who will incidentally be reincarnated as mice – yum!). These “alien bipeds” appear to not appreciate my fur on their clothes - If I am not supposed to sleep on the best chair in the living room, why is it called "fur"niture? As far as I am concerned I am my owner’s fur-child – except unlike most children I eat less, don't ask for money, don’t require the use of their car, don't smoke or drink, and won’t require funding for University!