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Catatonic from cats

3 min read

I don’t sleep well most nights. I often fall asleep for awhile before snapping awake at some random hour and then feeling like I could manage to clean the entire house with one hand tied behind my back. In fact, it is not unheard of for my husband to check on me and find me folding mounds of laundry and watching infomercials at 3 a.m.

Other nights, I am awake but am so tired that I convince myself that however much time is left until my alarm sounds is plenty for my body’s recovery from the previous day’s work. I tell myself “it’s only 4 o’clock. I’ll feel amazing by 6:30” or even, “seven minutes until the alarm? That is a bounteous amount of sleep remaining.”

Sometimes it works and others, not so much.

But on occasion, I drift into the most peaceful sleep and stay in it for six or eight hours. I feel rested and renewed when I awake. I am prepared to start a new day with vim and vigor.

That hasn’t happened in a very long time, and it is because of my cats.

Typically, I am now awakened by at least one of my cats, usually the long-haired calico named Bella, placing a paw (or four) on my face. This happens at nearly the same time every day. I think when she decides that she is hungry, she also decides I need to feed her immediately.

One morning, she was particularly excitable, and she got my lip with the tip of a claw. Let me tell you, I was awake. I even rushed out of bed, though I still didn’t feed her right away; I was too busy wiping tears from my eyes and checking my mouth for blood.

Once one cat wakes me, the others begin to arrive. Within a few seconds, all of them are piled on the bed, meowing piteously and, yet, purring. It is hard to sleep through.

The irritating part is that they are never without food. There is always a bowl of kibble available to them beside an automatic water dispenser. They are just spoiled (shocker) and know that I give them some canned food first thing in the morning as well. If they were actually hungry, it would be more forgivable.

If they would acknowledge a weekend by letting me sleep for an extra hour, I could live with it as well.

On more than one occasion, this wake-up call has come before 4 a.m. I tell my husband – who is usually sighing exasperatedly at their noisy intrusion – that I can’t get up and feed them because it will train them that breakfast comes before the sun.

Instead, I get up, begin to walk toward the door as if I am headed to the kitchen, and then shut the door when they attempt to lead the way. Then I head back to bed, where I often lie awake, watching the minutes tick by and thinking about all of the things I could be doing downstairs instead.

Eventually, I get up and make coffee, turn on the television and begin the day.

By feeding the cats.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.

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