Uploaded on Mar 4, 2008
"A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to wake its sleeping owner."
After many a morning spent pretending to be asleep. Well, okay, after many an afternoon spent pretending to be asleep, I can attest to the validity of this cartoon rendering of cat methodologies employed to wake the hooman snoozer -- but contend it does not have to be a cat in need of anything in particular. In our Manor, it's simple sporting competition, with three cats taking their turn.
Let's review, shall we?
There's the infamous and huge Buddy the Maine Coon, who weighs in as an adult German Shepherd.
There's the divine Miss Marmy Fluffy Butt, who spends 50% of her time fleeing from Buddy, 45% napping (but with pivoting ears) and 5% sharpening her lightening fast claws.
Finally, there is the sweetest angel fart ever, Little Dobby, my dearest love, my companion, the peace-maker.
When they're working as a team, I have no chance. But then, I have no chance to witness them working as a team if I show myself as awake, so it's something of a [painful] treat.
Actually, they do pull off some moves that would make Olympic synchronized swimming competition fade in fading glory. As when Fred hauls in those 75-pound bags of premium, break-the-bank, "guaranteed to stop hairballs and all malodorous feline productions" bags of kibble... and, worn out by both the monetary and physical hauling, drops it against the large feed bucket.
"I'll fill it later."
We've gone over the fact that Fred has ADHD, yes? Well, let this be a summarizing example. Where Fred puts something -- meaning, ANYTHING -- is where that item is going to stay. I've conducted experiments, aiming to prove God-only-knows-what, since this is a well-known symptom of ADHDers. It's just really hard to believe, is all.
I mean, when you empty your dish drainer, or for you modernized families, the mechanized dish washer, you are likely to place the clean, dry items that you remove in their designated spots, usually agreed upon by years of standard usage, or, in the more dysfunctional Manors, perhaps by half-hour long arguments of the appropriate spot for the plastic container lids. Someone has gone to great lengths, and by someone, I mean me, to keep the counter tops clean, uncluttered, and disinfected (We do have three cats, after all, and if this post and YouTube cartoon tell you nothing else, it is that cats do many things of which their hooman companions are unaware.).
Fred does stuff like put up every item, perfectly, even re-arranging in some more sensible way the storage of those infernal plastic lids... except for one, maybe two things. A colander. A fork. Those will simply be set on the counter. There is no impending pasta cook-off, no need to twirl noodles after draining. He just does not completely finish any task.
If washing the dishes, they're immaculate and arranged in the drainer, not just with artistry, but with geometric precision designed to promote the most rapid and effective drainage possible, given the angles and curves of what he has to work with. But there will remain, after he's dried his hands and carefully hung the dishrag to dry, one item in the sink still full of soapy water. If you're curious, just walk on by, that day... and the next... and the next. Until your head explodes.
Back to the cats, the kibble, Dear Fred and our theme song, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Someday Never Comes.
I know what you are thinking. "Well, profderien, get Bianca Castafiore or Sven or the Cabana Boy, or a stray Genetically-Indentured Manor Staff underage child to empty that bag of kibble into the feed bucket... Or, jeez, already, if you can vacuum and mop with the best in the Power Wheelchair Senior's Division, do it your damn self, and leave Fred alone."
I usually do. But not until I've peeped around door edges to watch the amazing, silent Dance of the Kibble Bag, as performed by Buddy and Marmy, with Dobby as pitiful look-out and cheerleader (he has weak nails). Marmy makes the intial slash with a surgeon's precision. Hmm. Given some of the surgeons we've encountered, perhaps she surpasses their acumen. She prefers the lower right corner.
Then she sits down, looking pretty and perfect, and gives the nod to Buddy. Dobby gives a sad little leap, doing splits in the air, and vocalizing what must be a fervent "rah!".
Buddy commences to chew. He's maybe more a goat than a German Shepherd.
At the end of this short show, they've achieved a steady, lava-like flow of kibble.
Which they do not eat.
Because eating it was never the point.
Making fun of the hoomans, peeping around the corners at us as we gesticulate and go into frenzies upon finding kibble strewn all over the laundry room -- that may be the point. We're not sure.
Now I'm depressed.
To give some sort of dénouement to this non-tale, I'll give away the "Wake up, Hooman" ending. It's innocuous little Dobby who succeeds in turning me from a faking sleeper to a bona fide cursing cat companion. He's small but he's... poky. He pokes and stabs with his sharp-boned little legs, and he knows just where it hurts the worse. But by the time I heave myself into a position to view the miniature Doberman, he's snug on a soft blanket opposite my corpulence, and staring, transfixed, at the ceiling fan.
His pièce de résistance?
The moment when I, too, fix my eye upon the stationary fan.
CAST:
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| Dobby, ready for mailing |
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| Marmy Fluffy Butt |
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| Buddy (prior to last growth spurt) |
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