Cat Owner Demonstrates a Foolproof Way of Taking a Bathroom Break Without Annoying Your Lap-sitting Feline

Before recorded history, sometime after African wildcats followed their Mus musculus—house mouse—prey into Neolithic farm settlements, the human half in the relationship began disappointing napping cats with their bathroom breaks. After thousands of years, advances have been made in the furniture best suited for cats napping in laps, but the technology to avoid ruining the nap when the bathroom calls or the throat gets a tickle has remained a niche concern. But a new technique, shared in a viral video, may free humanity of the tragic consequences of their own bladders and provide cats everywhere the opportunity for more uninterrupted midday beautyrest.

Posted to the subreddit r/aww—a forum for adorable pictures and videos of "puppies, bunnies, babies, and so on..."—the video titled "LPT: Own a Lap Cat but need a refill or bathroom break? Use this technique to maintain the peace" has so far garnered more than 36,000 upvotes since it was uploaded by reddit user Zinohh on Monday.

(LPT stands for "Life Pro Tip.")

"Her name is Honeybun. She LOVES lap naps," Zinohh, who also goes by Joe, or ZinoJoe on Instagram (where he fields fitness questions), told Newsweek in response to a message sent via reddit. "I always felt so guilty disturbing her naps but sometimes nature calls, haha! I now always have a pillow handy to anticipate her inevitable arrival. She caught on to the routine very quickly!"

In the video, Joe scootches his wheeled office chair back toward a secondary chair, which he uses as a landing platform for the pillow he uses for Honeybun's lap naps. The video makes it look like a relatively easy process, but it can take a little practice and preparation first.

Joe provided Newsweek an advanced tip for those hoping to truly master his technique.

"I recommend the secondary chair having similar vertical height to your current one to minimize disturbance," Joe said. "Cats are very sensitive to elevation changes, so slow and steady!"

A reddit user with the screen name SchnoodleDoodleDo also provided a poem accompaniment to the video, creating a rhyming scheme for using Zinohh's technique in your own life:

"this my friend, by him i stay

n on his lap i like to lay

but when he needs a little break,

these the steps he gonna take...

he lift me on my pillow bed

n gently kiss me on my head

so softly place me on the chair,

n promise he'll be right back there ;}..."

In response to questions posed by other redditors, Zinohh provided some additional tips and details, including a suggestion to "keep an old shirt around to throw on and catch all the cat hairs that will inevitably shed."

While his pillow technique has already found the approval of thousands, it remains to be seen whether or not a designated cat nap shirt will catch on in the same way. So let's not fret about cat hair: keep on napping my friends.