Over at Dogster, we’ve been hearing a lot about people having birthday parties for their dogs, complete with guest lists, presents, and cake, but we haven’t seen much of that over at Catster. We hope to change that. Here’s our official and utterly nonsensical guide to throwing the perfect birthday party for your cat.

Head to the party supply store and buy an assortment of balloons, streamers, and party favors. Now return all that stuff to the store. This is a birthday party for a cat.

Drive to the best fish market in town, park, sit in your car, and think long and hard about exactly what you are doing. Start the car and go home.

Invite human friends, though it is likely your cat doesn’t have human friends per se but rather people she tolerates for very short moments, months apart. Invite these people. Man, what a great party this is going to be.

Invite cat friends. If you cat doesn’t have any cat friends, some can be picked up for next to nothing at the local humane society or shelter. If this sounds like a good idea to you, you should stop reading this and immediately find a better home for your cat.

Plan some great activities for the party. One idea is to sew raw fish onto wind-up toys and get the hell out of the way. Hopefully nobody will happen to stop by for a visit and see the crazy tableau you’ve got going there on the kitchen floor.

Another idea is to play pin the tail on the dog. You’ll have to play this alone because your cat will not understand what the hell you are doing with the dog.

Alternatively, you can play a rousing game of musical chairs. Again, you’ll have to play this alone because you have a cat.

As for refreshments, turn on all the faucets in the house. When your kitty wakes up in the morning, tell her, “The bar is open!” Keep the faucets running all day. Don’t turn off the faucets, whatever you do.

Music is a tough one, because the only sound most kitties like is the sound of a can opener slicing into a can of cat food. Fortunately, John Mayer’s latest album sounds exactly like this.

Cats are difficult to buy gifts for, because they’re often indifferent to gifts and it can be days or months before they warm up to a present and give it a fair shot. If you cat is indifferent to your gift, stand up, exit the room, lock yourself in your bathroom and cry your eyes out.

If your cat actively hates your gift, you bought him a litter box, didn’t you?

When it’s time to sing “Happy Birthday,” stick a candle into a breast of chicken and check to see whether anybody is coming up the walk or passing by. If the coast is clear, start singing at the top of your lungs, really belting it out, substituting meows for some or even all of the words. You can dance, too. Who cares? Your cat will be under the bed by now and will miss everything.

If you made your cat a birthday cake, ask yourself, does this cake resemble a chunk of chicken, exactly, from the appearance to the texture to the taste? If you answered no, then start again. Foster Farms makes a good pre-cooked cat birthday cake with grill marks for $3.49 (southwest style).

If you’re the kind of person who likes to pretend that catnip is contraband for kitties, have you thought of hosting a ’60s-themed drug party? Just put an assortment of different catnips into baggies, play Janis Joplin, and rap to your cat using ’60s phraseology. Isn’t this a great idea?

Some final dos and don’ts for your birthday party for your cat

Do: Invite your boss and that one checker at the supermarket who always asks how your day is going.

Don’t: Let your cat sleep all day, because it’s her special day and she damn well better enjoy it.

Do: Make a courtesy call to the neighbors that you’re having a party for your cat, and would they like to bring an appetizer or a dip?

Don’t: Buy your cat a new litter box, unless it has a slide.

Do: Consider renting a bouncy castle, then slap your head as you remember what happened last year. Your cat hates bouncy castles, silly!

Don’t: Serve appetizers with little toothpicks in them. Cats can’t handle it.

Do: Buy your cat a new cat tree, or extend the one you have to make a forest.

Don’t: Buy yourself all new kitchen appliances on Amazon so your cat can have the boxes.

Do: Forget everything on this list and just go to a bookstore, ask for their old boxes, and introduce them in your living room one after the other. You’re done. Cat birthday.

Thumbnail: Photography ©tobkatrina | Thinkstock.