Momnesia

Every day is Caturday

AUGUSTA, GA - This is our cat. Her name is Fluffernutter Sweetiebelle Bananapants McGowen Hudson. Or, just "Sweetie," for short. I love this cat. This cat is my jam.

This cat is also completely unconcerned about whether or not I get a full night's sleep, and - until recently - would regularly wake me at 4:30 a.m. by gently biting my toes so that I would feed her.



I tamed that instinct by buying her an automatic feeder and waterer, which freed me from her middle-of-the-night requests for cheezburgers, and such. (Side note: that lasted until yesterday, when I had to stop free-feeding, as she would eat until she threw up... which kind of defeats the purpose of eating.) Now, I regularly get to sleep as late as 5:30 a.m. without her waking me! Woohoo! Just like a rock star!

But not every night....

"meer..."

[oh no....]

"meeeer..."

[ugh. no, cat. shut it.]

"meeeeeeeer?"

[shhh... lie still. maybe she won't recognize you.]

"MEER."



"MEEEEER..."

[Wait. That's not a normal meow.]

"MEEEEER?"

[That's a "There's a guy I don't know downstairs and he's taking all your stuff" meow.]

"MEEEEEEEEER!"

It's 1:38 a.m. I drag my butt out of bed and stand up. Sweetie responds by galloping in two excited circles. Crap. This can't be good. I briefly consider grabbing some kind of weapon, but I don't have the energy to wield one. Maybe if I ask politely, the perpetrator will just... go? Have you ever been so tired that it was less worrisome to be possibly murderized than to waste all that energy with the picking up of a nearby broom?

She waits for me at the bedroom door. I trudge forward. She runs to the top of the stairs and eyes me. I follow, peering around as I descend. The front door is closed. I don't hear anything downstairs. I shuffle down the stairs, where Sweetie is waiting on the bottom step.

Suddenly, she bolts... and flops down on the floor on her side with a big kitty grin on her face.

My cat woke me at 1:38 a.m. to escort her downstairs. Just so she could lie back down, two feet from the bottom of the stairs.

I resisted the urge to punt her out the front door and trudged back to bed. But I'm going to have to find a fix for this situation.

"Maybe she needs a friend, Mama," Emerson suggested.

Great. TWO cats to wake me up in the middle of the night.