At times my bedroom sees more traffic than Grand Central Station

Imagine if you will four cats.  Mickey, Charlotte and Gabriel get along with each other, but Chanel gets bullied by Gabriel.  So, to prevent a fight I came up with the plan of separating them.  Some nights Chanel gets to sleep with me, other nights Gabriel gets to share my bed.  When I’m ready to turn in I close my door.  And that’s when it starts …

No sooner am I in bed or there is scratching at the door.  I know that scratch, only one cat scratches … Mickey.  So I get up and let him in. 

Within minutes I will hear a throaty meow.  I know that meow, only Charlotte sounds like an old coffee grinder.  So once again I get up and let her in.

It’s not long before Mickey decides he wants to go out.  I try to make him change his mind by calling him to bed or tempting him with a nice soft basket.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  So I have to get up again to let Mick out.

While I’m up I turn to Charlotte … “Do you want to go out too?”  Charlotte isn’t moving, she seems quite happy where she is at the time.  Of course, that doesn’t last long.  Sooner or later she decides she wants a change of scenery.  So, up again to now let Charlotte out.

When I hear Mickey scratching and Charlotte meowing again I decide to ignore them.  If I let them in I’ll only have to get up again to let them out.  “No Mickey,” I call, “go to sleep.”  My call gets answered by more scratching and meowing, but I stand (or rather lie) firm, I’m not letting them in.

That’s when Gabriel raises his head with a face like “Can’t you hear there’s someone at the door?”  Now I have to content with a cat looking at me, waiting to answer his friends’ call.  I’m not falling for it, he can look at me until the cows come home, I’m in bed and I’m staying put.

That is until Gabriel keeps looking at me, now adding a soft “Meeeee” to get his message across.  “Oh all right, I’ll let them in,” I tell him.  “But they better go to sleep or ….”  Or what? 

In the wee hours of the morning I wake up from a pitiful cry.  Now Gabriel wants to go out. 
“Gabriel, no, come back to bed.”

“Mee.”

“No, come, go back to sleep.”

“Mee eee”

If I ignore his meow (or what has to pass for one) it just gets longer and more urgent.  Like an opera singer launching into an area of Tosca.  “Meeeee eeeee eeeee”.

Oh for goodness sake okay, I’m coming.

I wonder what Mickey, Charlotte and Gabriel are saying when they get together.   She falls for it every time?

On the nights that I let Chanel sleep with me, that’s no picnic either.  She curls up with me and doesn’t ask to be let out, but she keeps me awake in other ways … first purring and then snoring.

Jeez but that cat can snore.  At times I’ve asked her if she can turn the volume down a bit, which results in a sound an octave higher than before.  Not to mention that she likes to lie close to me, ticking my face with her whiskers. 

Now that I’m up everyone is sound asleep.  Nobody wants to go out, nobody wants to come in.  Nobody purrs, nobody snores.  For some reason I feel like playing music … really loud.

Every action has a reaction

It’s hard being a cat sometimes, especially if you share a house with other cats.

Even though there are three perfectly good baskets around, whenever there’s a box available Chanel, Mickey, Charlotte and Gabriel will take turns curling up in it.  But sometimes one of them overstays his welcome.  In that case patience goes out the window and it’s time for a little action.

While Gabriel was sleeping in a cardboard box today, Mickey did just that.  He positioned himself close to where Gabriel and looked at him.  Make that, stared at him.  He stared and stared and just when I thought he was about to give up, he stared some more.

Gabriel wasn’t bothered.  Mickey could stare all he wanted, Gabe wasn’t moving.  So what did Mickey do … he bit Gabriel’s leg.  He lowered his head, nuzzled his nose into Gabriel’s long hair, but instead of grooming him, he took a bite.

As planned, this action had a reaction.  Unfortunately Mickey hadn’t thought this one through though.  Yes, Gabriel vacated the box, but Mickey couldn’t immediately take possession of it.  First he had to deal with a mouthful of hair.  That comes of it when you bite a longhaired cat.

Do Mickey and Gabriel fight?  Neih, they’re the best of friends, always have been.

In general it wasn’t Mickey’s day today.  This morning I couldn’t find him.  I wasn’t really worried because I had seen him some five minutes before, so I figured he was probably sleeping somewhere.

While waiting for Mick to resurface I decided to make the beds.  I started with Dieter’s bed, grabbed hold of the duvet and flung it on the floor.  There Mickey was, with some dumb look on his face like “What the hell happened?” 

Did he get up?  If you think he did, you don’t know Mickey very well.  He put his head down and went right back to sleep.  Okay, I would come back later.  Much later.

I moved on to my bed.  Once again I grabbed the duvet and threw it off the bed.  I heard a “clonk”.  That was strange, duvets go down softly, they don’t go clonk.  This time I had interrupted Charlotte’s sleep.  She slunk from under the duvet (that was now in a heap on the floor) clearly not impressed.  She gave me a look that said “What’d do that for?”

This was clearly a no win situation for me.  So I left the beds alone and went to do the dishes instead.  Much safer for everyone.

Accidental or deliberate?

Last night Gabriel joined me in bed, as he does every night.  As usual he wanted to have his head rubbed, his belly tickled and his head rubbed some more. 

Usually he sleeps late (as I do) and we get up together.  Not this morning though.  I woke up from a scratching on the door, followed by “Meow, meow”.

“Ssst,” I shushed sleepy.

This didn’t work, Gabriel cried and kept on crying, he pleas getting louder and louder.

“Gabriel,” I said, “come back to bed and go to sleep.”  In reply he scratched the door some more and let out another couple of “meows”.

“Gaaaaaabriel,” I groaned, “pleeeeease!  It’s too early, come back to bed.”

Gabriel wouldn’t hear of it and meowed more insistent than before.

“GABRIEL!” I yelled, now fully awake.  “What is it with you?  It’s too early."

 
“Meow” he said in response.

I could have just gotten up and let him out of my bedroom, but it’s was so warm in bed and I wasn’t quite ready to leave, even if it was only for a few seconds.

To my relief Gabriel left his spot by the door and jumped on my bed.  He didn’t curl up though, he stepped on the bed’s headboard and sat there.

I turned over, snuggled under the covers and was just about to doze off when something hard landed right snack on my head.   A stone duck was the culprit, knocked down courtesy of Gabriel he couldn’t keep his paws to himself.  He knocked that duck down to get back at me for not letting him out.   

Accidental or deliberate?  One thing is for sure, when he start meowing tomorrow, I’ll open the door, who knows what else he has in mind.

From there on my day didn’t exactly get better. 

While I was working on the computer later on, I suddenly heard a “tonk”, followed by “splat, splat, splat”.  I was still trying to figure out what the strange noise was when I noticed something moving on Dieter’s nigh stand, where he keeps a fish tank.

On the night stand was a tiny fish, flipping and flapping like crazy.  I immediately rushed to the rescue, but picking up a tiny, slippery fish proved more difficult than I expected.  After a couple of futile attempts I resorted to wiping the fish with one hand into my other hand.  Much like one would brush crumbs off a table.

I worked and once I had the fish I deposited him back into the water.  Oh my heart, my poor heart.  Even though I managed to stay calm during a crisis, once it was over I nearly went horizontal.

I had to tell someone, I had to share this near horrible experience.  So I called the owner of the fish, Dieter.  And what did he do when I told him the horrible tale?  Not what I expected.  He wasn’t shocked, he wasn’t worried, he wasn’t even sympathetic, he … burst out laughing.  Thought the whole thing too funny.  He even posted it on Facebook!

First a cat, then a fish … maybe I should stick to a bird or something.