A Day in the Life of Me and My Cat… Before Breakfast… Everyday.

Simon recreating how I feel every morning

 

It happens every morning, before the sun is even up, my cat goes for his morning constitutional. This is not the problem of course, it’s the fact that he goes ‘sand-boxing’ with every use. Then he comes for me. I live in a studio, I can’t just kick him out of my room so he wakes me up with a couple different quirks e-v-e-r-y morning, without fail, whether I’m sleeping in or not, in these very evil ways.

All I know is that the sun is nowhere near rising (my windows face east so I get the first peak of sun streaming through my blinds attempting to give me Lasik eye surgery every morning) and Simon strolls on over to his part of the bathroom to do his thing. I have no idea exactly what time this is because I almost always refuse to even open my eyes when I start to hear him pooping around in there instead of just pooping and leaving. And I never put my glasses on for fear that focusing my eyes on something will wake up my brain but I suspect he goes sometime between 5:30am and 6:30am. The thing is if he just used it and left it wouldn’t even phase me, it wouldn’t even wake me up but he insists on spending the next 5 minutes perfectly covering his work. He does this by pawing all the way down to the bottom of the box, clawing at the trash bag that lines it and then pummeling the side of the bathtub that the box lives next to (all of these actions are what I call ‘sand-boxing’ because all he needs is a shovel and pail and he’s all set). These are the noises that echo in my head every morning because the bathroom is a straight 15 foot shot (seriously, I just measured it) from my cozy little bed. There’s nowhere else for that noise to go but right in my ears. Once the litter use has become just play and I can’t take anymore of the noise I normally counter back with a loud noise of my own (either clapping or yelling or hitting the bed) to scare him out of his zombie clawing state (because sometimes I really think he just goes on autopilot) and he stops and I fall back asleep. … UNTIL!

See, now he’s all awake and feeling good. You know how it is after a really good go at the toilet, so he wants to hang out and play. So in under a half hour he’s at it again, getting into whatever looks good. Usually he stops for a bite to eat and now that I’m sensitive to his whereabouts I focus on every crunch of Friskies. After he’s had his morning snack he decides it’s a great idea to come see me for a visit. Normally when he sleeps it’s always by my feet so when he decides to curl up against my chest I still hope against hope that my petting him will lull him into a nice snooze but no, he’s come to give himself a bath. Now I’m half asleep with a cat using my head to prop himself up so he can lick his butt and I think to myself ‘what have I done to deserve this?’ I’ve given him a super great life, rescued him from a dumpster at just weeks old when he could fit in the palm of my hand, loved him unconditionally for almost 8 years and now I’m being treated like the railings and seat in an old person’s bathtub. The thing is that I’m such a pushover for him that I just give him a nudge and roll over in hopes that I can fall back asleep. BUT NO! Now that I’m not facing him he’s a little offended and shows his discontent my trying to brush my hair with his claws. He literally paws my head then pulls his claws through my hair. I push him off and find myself in an extreme fetal position thinking that all desirable parts of my body are hidden but now Simon is under the impression that I’m playing a game with him. He starts walking over me, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… back and forth making sure to put all 21 pounds of his pressure on my bladder, stomach or boob through one paw at every pass.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a very stubborn person so I’m still not giving in to Simon’s whims. I’m hoping that at some point he’ll learn that trying to wake me up at the ass crack of dawn everyday won’t do anything for him (I’ll let you know how that works out for me). But he finally gives up on walking on me and leaves to find more trouble and I, still maintaining that half asleep state so I have a slight chance to get a little more rest, curl up and pray to the cat gods that Simon chills out. Though normally he doesn’t and I have to endure at least one if not all of the following forms of harassment:

• Finding the loudest toy in the bunch and explodes across the wood floors with it. Throwing it for himself, jumping on it, jingling it.. whatever makes the most noise.
• Going back for more food. Sometimes when he eats he uses his paw to scoop the pieces out onto the floor and then crunches on it… maximizing the amount of noise he makes.
• Sometimes when the sun is really bursting through the shades a beam of light reflects on the side of my bookcase which somehow screams to Simon to scratch at it (I imagine this voice to be in the form of an evil whisper) so he props himself up on his hind legs and has at it until my yelling at him makes it no fun anymore. (These are the reasons I used to keep a water gun with me at all times but it got moldy so I guess it’s time for a new one!)
• And lastly, he’ll sit right next to my bed looking at my bedside table which is low to the ground and perfect cat terrorizing height. One of the sections has books that are in some process of being read and he pulls them all out, one by one, on to the floor in a noisy pile.

By now I’m done, it’s between 8am and 8:30am (on my days off, that is) and there’s no hope of me going back to sleep. I get my glasses, turn on my computer, finally go pee after my bladder has been assaulted my Simon’s morning march over my body, get a glass of water or cup of tea, fill up Simon’s food bowl, give him fresh water and start my day. I check my email, screw around on Facebook for a minute and make a to-do list for the day. By this time a half hour or so has passed and I notice I haven’t seen Simon for a little while. I look over to his little corner where I have a fuzzy lime green rug and a little tent-bed-thing set up for him and he’s in there, passed out like a drunken sailor. He’s all nuzzled, curled up, half hanging out of the tent and in kitty dreamland. There is no sign of life besides a faint smile on his face because he went to sleep satisfied with a job well done, yet again waking up the girl who feeds him and scoops his poop. I don’t know why he does it, some say cats are pure evil and are just waiting for you to die so they can eat you. I never believed that but I’m starting to see what they’re saying. Simon gets his sick jollies out of getting me up in the morning and I suppose that’s just what I have to deal with now. If I had a dog I’d be barked at every morning until I took him for a walk, at least this way I get woken up but don’t have to put my shoes or coat on.. or even pants. Take that dog people, cat people don’t need pants!

Simon being cute in his tent

But I love my cat. I wouldn’t change him for anything. I’d let him wake me up early for the rest of my life if he could live that long. But now I think I’ll be a little more quick to respond to his wake-up calls just in case he starts trying to make one of my eyeballs breakfast, because I’m not so sure that all he’s doing every morning is just checking to see if today is the day he can eat me.

Could something with a face like this really end up gnawing on my dead body? I'm starting to think yes.

Sleep tight cat people!

-xo