Day 129: Bed acrobatics

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 129: Bed acrobatics

When bedtime comes around, everyone has their own routine. Some people take a shower, others make a cup of chamomile tea, while others still read a few pages of a book to calm down. Me, I count my cats before turning in.

Most of the time, finding them is no trouble at all. Charlotte usually sleeps curled up by Dieter’s feet while Gabriel, Holly, and Halley are already on my bed. As such, getting into bed requires some acrobatics on my part. With a cat here and a cat there, getting a space to lie down takes a certain amount a sliding, twisting and turning to get under the duvet.

While some cats get up at the slightest movement, Gabriel, Holly, and Halley are like rocks, they don’t move an inch. I can push them, put a foot under them and try to lift them, it makes no difference whatsoever.

As soon as I turn off the light there’s movement though. Holly comes and drapes herself on my chest. Not only is this a considerable weight, it’s also quite warm. Welcome in winter, but not so much now in summer. Meanwhile, Halley likes to position herself on my head. Another source of heat.

Smart as they are, they know my routine though. As long as I’m on my back they can expect to be petted, but once I turn on my side, I want to go to sleep. So, they move. Now there’s another problem though … purring and snoring.

Holly likes to share my pillow, which is fine, but with her happy noises, it sounds like there’s a helicopter hovering near my head. As for Halley, she’s only a big baby, but her purring reaches quite a few decibels.

In the morning things are quite different.

Charlotte and Holly are late sleepers, but Gabriel and Halley rise with the sun. They seem of the opinion when we’re up everybody should be up. As such, Gabriel starts meowing, only he doesn’t meow like a normal cat, he pronounces meow as mayo, as in mayonnaise. When I try to shush him, he adds a few decibels. Not that I have any intention of getting up at whatever time he starts his nonsense.

Halley never asks for food, she knows she’ll get her breakfast in good time and until then she plays with her favorite toy, a plastic spring. Unfortunately, we have hardwood as flooring and when she chases the spring her nails make a scratching noise. It’s like an army of mice running around.

Eventually, I give up and get up.

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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.