So your cat just died. It’s not your fault, of course, that damn road uses up a lot of animals. Maybe you went through the proper motions. You broke it to your family gently, you explained the concept of death in concrete terms and even if your child hates you right now, they might feel better later on and accept that the pet will live on in their memory. Oh, wait, you didn’t do that? You buried the pet without telling anyone in an ancient Indian burial ground which you were told about by an old man that you met last week? If so, you might be in the same boat as this Florida man and his cat, Bart.

If you’re looking to Pet Sematary for advice, I’d brace yourself. You’ve naturally run no kind of background check on your elderly neighbor and are setting yourself up for a major disaster. But you started this mess, your stinky cat has come crawling back to you, so read on for four ways not to handle the situation as evidence by Pet Sematary.

This is your first mistake and, congratulations, if your flesh-eating feline is back in the house it probably means you’ve already done this. This is the first thing Louis Creed does in Pet Sematary and we’re all aware that it doesn’t lead anywhere good. If you had asked anyone but your porch-dwelling neighbor if it would be a good idea to bury your cat in an Indian burial ground, there’s a good chance you’d get a resoundingly negative response in the form of “No, don’t do that. Why would anyone do that? Please step away from my children and leave this house now.” It should be a law of common sense that Indian burial grounds are not where you put your dead pets. The backyard is probably a much better place. The freezer is even acceptable until you can think long and hard about exactly where to put the thing. Eat a few Hot Pockets to make room and really examine what kind of ground you’d like to bury the family pet in. But clearly you didn’t do this. That’s OK. It’s an unsettling situation, but we can work with this. Just tell your family what happened. It doesn’t reflect greatly on you, but no damage has been caused just yet. Sit them down and explain that the cat is a zombie so you can figure out what to do about it together.

Pretend Nothing is Wrong

Well, you didn’t do that either. Now you’re just pretending that the cat is fine when it is clearly dead. Look at it. Look at the cat’s eyes. Do you think those are what eyes look like, because they’re not. Your cat has headlights on its face, I’m amazed your family hasn’t noticed that yet. Pretty soon, though, they’re going to notice the smell. You keep telling everyone that the cat is fine, but they notice its unusual behavior. It will attack without warning and leave dead animals in your bed or even in the bathtub. Alright, so its behavior hasn’t changed that much. It’s still a cat. But people are going to notice the smell if you don’t do something. You still have a chance to explain what’s going on to your family. Whatever you do, don’t go back to your kindly old neighbor. He and his saltwater taffy got you into this mess to begin with. Just take care of the cat and make sure it doesn’t develop a taste for your wife and children.

Ignore the Dead Cat Living in Your Home

Great. Now you’re ignoring the dead cat to focus on the major plot points. This is why you really should have thought about whether or not resurrecting the animal was a good idea. How attached are you to the cat? Do you really see yourself living with this animal forever? These are essential questions to ask yourself before getting into this mess and they are things you outright ignored. Now you don’t even notice that the animal is there, which is a little weird because it’s got to be smelling ripe by this point. You know what? It’s time to end this. Bringing the cat back so your child doesn’t have to lose the animal, that’s a nice sentiment but it clearly didn’t work. You would have been much better off buying her a goldfish. You still have a chance to put it down humanely before anyone gets hurt and just never speak of this again. Tell your child that it ran away. Better yet, tell them it got hit by a truck. If you tell your child that it died in the road and you buried it anywhere else on the planet but an Indian burial ground, they will probably understand. Because, let’s face it, things are getting bad. Now you’re getting nightly visits from a ghost in tennis shorts. You at least owe him the common courtesy of listening to him, considering that you’re probably the reason he’s dead, but you’re not doing that. His head may be leaking brain matter, but the things he’s saying make sense. Sit down and have a polite conversation with the ghost and I’m sure the whole matter will be solved in minutes.

Now That You Know it Works on Cats, Bring Back Whatever the Hell You Want

What are you doing? Now you’re bringing back everything that dies because you don’t want to deal with it. It’s good we’re not being selfish about this. Granted a family member is a much bigger problem than a cat, but you wouldn’t have even thought of the second thing if you hadn’t done the first. Well, the cat is probably going to die all over again from neglect, so at least that’s one problem solved. You know what? I cannot do anything for you at this point. You ignored common sense at every turn. Your cat spawned a series of unfortunate events and now you resent the poor animal even though everything that happened is really your fault. You had a guardian angel in tennis shorts and you ignored him too. Maybe what you need is to take a nice, long walk on the side of the road so that when you get put in the Indian burial ground and climb your way back out, we’ll see how you like it. Just, whatever you’re doing… stop. Stop burying things. Stop bringing them back. What kind of person lets things spiral out of control like this? The universe put up giant roadblocks to stop you from doing exactly what you’re doing. You, however, you skillful, jovial fellow you’ve avoided every one of them. Now you know where a resurrected cat gets you. Maybe the next person will learn from your mistakes. Because, my god they are plentiful. Hopefully the lesson we’ve learned about bringing cats back to life is not to do it. Don’t even think about it, the bad always outweighs the good. Let the road do what the road does, because sometimes dead is better.