The bar was quiet. Moments before it had been a raucous thunder of laughing people sloshing drinks to and fro. Only one thing had changed, someone very dumb, had shoved the barman's cat off of a seat.

"What's going on?" A young Jalanth asked his older compatriot who had brought him to this human bar.

"Quiet," the older Jalanth said, "take note, that guy just caught a case of stupidity."

The man who had shoved the cat seemed not to notice that everyone in the bar had gone silent and watched him. "Let me get a Grozian ale." He said.

The barman, with a deadpan look that sent shudders through those who knew him, stared straight at him. "Fresh out of the Grozian." His tone could have tuned water to ice.

"What about an Earth spirit, this is a human bar, surely you have something for me to drink." Cat pusher said.

"I'm afraid that anything you order, will be unavailable. Maybe try the Ilvian bar next door." The barman retorted, and simply to infuriate the man the barman poured a large mug of Grozian ale and downed it without breaking eye contact. "So why don't you head on out, and let captain Meowsel have his seat back."

The cat, seeming to take note that his seat would be opening up again, jumped gracefully up on the bar and affixed the Cat Pusher with a glare that matched the barman.

"Damned rat doesn't need a seat." The Cat Pusher said, pushing the cat off of the backside of the bar this time.

The room seemed to collectively inhale, and a young human, who everyone knew to be the barman's oldest son, walked up to try and politely explain what was going on. "Excuse me, but I really think you should leave you see..."

He never finished the sentence as Cat Pusher turned slightly and shoved the boy away muttering to himself. "Damnded humans, you reproduce like flies, and apparently don't have the good sense to keep your putrid offspring away from a place that grown folk come to relax."

"Oh shit." The older Jalanth said, pushing the younger Jalanth back with the rest of the crowd. "His case of stupidity just became terminal stupidity."

An empty space formed as if by magic behind the Cat Pusher. Those paying attention would have noticed that several humans moved to stand next to the doors, all with eyes locked on Cat Pusher.

Cat Pusher, however, did not notice, as he only continued to berate the barman for drinks.

"We have no drink for you here." The barman said then smiled in a way that many of the patrons had never seen before and hoped never to see again. "However we do have one food item that might appeal to your kind."

"Oh, really?" Cat Pusher said, thinking nothing of how the barman had said the last sentence as food and specialty drink were some of the most highly regulated things in the galaxy thanks to the vast spread of biological makeups that comprised the sentient races.

"Oh, yes." The barman said, coming around to throw an arm rather forcefully across Cat Pusher's shoulder. "It is a delicacy reserved for a special few, it dates back to many thousands of years before humanity even left Earth."

"Oh? And what is this supposed delicacy called?" Cat Pushe asked clearly not impressed with the idea of ancient human food.

"A knuckle sandwich." The barman said, and without warning, his left arm, which was wrapped around the shoulders of Cat Pusher in a 'friendly' manner tightened into a headlock, and his right swung up and into the mouth of Cat Pusher.

The crunch that came from Cat Pusher's face was sickening. The young Jalanth looked around after flinching from the sound, as almost all the patrons had, to see nothing but smiles playing across the lips of every human in the bar.

The barman spoke, holding Cat Pusher's back pined to the bar with one hand around his throat, his other arm worked in tandem with his words, striking Cat Pusher in the gut. "First you push my cat."

Fwump

"Then you fail to take the hint and leave."

Fwump

"And when my son comes to try and explain what the situation is, you shove him as well."

Fwump

"And still have the nerve to ask for more drink!"

The young Jalanth braced for the sound of the human's hand impacting the surely liquified torso of Cat Pusher once more, but it never came. Instead, he looked up to see the barman holding Cat Pusher by the hair and pointing at the chair, and words engraved on it, that captain Meowsel had been perched in.

"Read it!"

Cat Pusher looked at the chair and read, his words coming out mumbled through busted lips. "This chair is reserved at all times for Captain Meowsel."

"That's right." The barman said. "And do you know what all those words mean?"

Cat Pusher nodded frantically, at least as much as the fistful of his hair in the barman's hand would allow. "I do, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed your son either."

"It's not me you should apologize to." The barman said.

Cat Pusher twisted in the grasp of the barman, finding the boy standing next to two other humans. "I'm sorry, I should not have shoved you."

The boy nodded and the barman grabbed Cat Pusher's face, holding the being off the ground so that they were eye-to-eye, on the human's level. "The next time that you walk into a human establishment and think that you can do as you please, remember this. Remember the delicacy that is the knuckle sandwich, and then remember your manners."

The young Jalanth watched as the two humans near the main door moved in anticipation of what happened next as if it were rehearsed. The barman turned and extended his body in a strange way faster than the young Jalanth could follow, the result of which was Cat Pusher flying the seven meters to, and then out, the door.

Several hours later after the barman had apologized to everyone, and given out several free rounds. The Jalanths found themselves at a different bar. The young Jalanth spoke. "Okay, can someone please tell me what that was? And why did you say he caught a case of stupid, and then terminal stupidity?"

The older Jalanths laughed and the one who had been talking to the younger spoke again. "When you look up the dos-and-don'ts of interacting with humans what do you notice?"

The younger Jalanth was familiar with what the older was referencing, all races published a list of things that other beings should not do, and things that they should when interacting so that businesses and individuals could have peaceable interactions.

The young Jalanth tapped his way to the human page on the net that listed their information. "What is this?" The young Jalanth asked, it was unlike any dos-and-don'ts list he had ever seen.

Most had hundreds, maybe even thousands of things listed under both the 'do' and 'don't' columns of their page. Humanity had two 'don'ts' and no 'dos.'

"What does it say?" The older Jalanth said, smiling in a knowing way.

"Human dos: because humans, as individuals, differ so vastly, we will not be listing anything in this column, please be respectful in learning about any humans that you interact with." The young Jalanth said reading the footnote of the 'dos' column and then continuing to read the don'ts. "Human Don'ts: It is imperative that the races of the galaxy realize that there are two things that will universally trigger a violent response from almost every human in existence, for your sake and the sake of those around you, we recommend abstaining from the following at all costs, firstly do not under any circumstances touch a human's child in any way that may be aggressive, or inappropriate. And secondly, do not harm a human's pet, as they are cared for and loved in much the same manner as a human's child."

The older Jalanth interjected after the younger had finished reading. "See the thing is that most races update those lists every year or so. That list has been the same for humans since their introduction to the wider galaxy seven hundred years ago."

Another of the Jalanths piped up. "I even heard that several wars have been lost against the humans because the races who attacked them decided that humans and unit mascots were viable targets. The races who were facing the humans in those wars, well they don't exist anymore."

Thye young Jalanth's eyes widened at this. The older Jalanth spoke again, after nodding. "See after you see it a few times, and interact with enough humans, you realize that it isn't that the humans are incredibly violent, the people who break the only two don'ts that the humans have are just really dumb."

A third of the elder Jalanths spoke then, nodding in agreement. "It caught on a long time ago, but if you mess with a human's pet, you caught a case of the stupid, you mess with their children, well your stupidity just became terminal, because more often than not the one who messed with the human child dies."

The young Jalanth's eyes went wide, and the others ordered another round. For the rest of the night, the young Jalanth drank and silently promised himself over and over, "I will not catch the stupid. I will not catch the stupid."