Being Furniture

In order for you to fully understand this next story, there are a few things you will need. Find approximately 14 pounds of water balloons. Add approximately a pound of marbles and place all of it in a bag of very long-haired felt. When you sleep, if you sleep on your back, place it on your chest or left shoulder against your face. If you sleep on your stomach, place it on the small of your back. If you lay on your side, it goes behind your knees or tucked just under your chin. When you're awake, leave it around your house on soft things and periodically move it, especially to places where the sun shines on floors or chairs or couches. And if you have a messy table, occasionally place it in the middle of the table and shove half of the stuff there onto the floor.

This would be my cat: Jaxom. He is (I am fairly sure) what is known as a Ragdoll cat. That is actually the name of a breed of cat, but it also describes Jaxom's behavior very well. His favorite activity is not moving. He is a good looking cat despite his rotund appearance, but was impossibly cute when he was younger. He would walk into a room full of people and simply meow and fall on his side to get someone to rush over and pet him. Ne never had to work for it, but now he acts like a has-been actor, knowing he used to be the center of attention and stubbornly insisting that this should continue even though he hardly makes the effort anymore. His sleeping habits are particularly well cultivated in an atmosphere of indifference. His proximity to me when I sleep seems directly proportional to how cold it is, and I, unfortunately indulge him. If it doesn't wake me up, I don't usually care where or how he sleeps, and I have been known to give up the couch and watch TV while sitting on the floor because he and my dog, Angel got there before me. However, there are times when my patience wears thin. This was one of those nights. Neither the cats (or Angel for that matter) cares if I sleep in my bed or on the couch, and I often doze off on the couch watching something on TV. There is usually plenty of room for all three animals and me.... if by "plenty of room" you mean enough surface area for the three of them...at least half of which I am providing. None of the animals wait for me to fall asleep either. If I'm there, I'm fair game, and I am usually a heavy sleeper, so if I fall asleep on the couch, I am usually there in the morning. This story is not about one of those nights. When I fell asleep on the couch this time, I was alone.

3:14am: I was awakened by a cat landing on my chest with a "mrowr" The cat tower is right behind the couch making where I was sleeping a perfect springboard for cat arrivals and departures. At fifteen pounds this is nothing to shrug off, but it was short of real pain. Jaxom settled down right away on my shoulder before I even had time to decide what to do. As a rule, I don't care where I sleep. The couch is just as comfortable as my bed most of the time and at that moment it had the virtue of being already under me, so instead of stumbling off to a real bed I manage to switch off some mindless talking head telling me how much money I could make selling post-it notes (or something like that) and drifted off to sleep again.

3:33am: I was again awakened by the cat, this time trying to "get comfortable" by laying on my left shoulder and pushing on the back of the couch thereby shoving his butt against my head in an effort to somehow "expand" the shoulder that he is trying to sleep on. This tactic doesn't work because a) The bones that were used in the construction of my neck and shoulder are not elastic and b) he's too fat. He did this a couple times. I briefly consider making the long trek upstairs to bed. I was no longer concerned with the cat. But I am.... at heart... lazy. While I was still thinking about it, I drifted off to sleep.

3:41am: The cat had decided to clean himself. This doesn't mean that he was sitting up, licking his paws and rubbing his head like a normal cat. He had placed his paw against my head and began licking it while lying on his side. Unfortunately, this meant licking both his paw and the side of my head. Those of you unaware of the horror that is a cat tongue, know that it is made of sandpaper and was probably a gift from Satan himself to punish mortals for idea that cats would make the ideal pet. This of course was the "last straw" Reacting in the calm, reserved manner of a man who was having a half-lucid dream that his skull was being sanded by pixies, I sat up immediately. The cat.... understandably... departed immediately, which involved the extension of the cats traditional traction enhancement gear (ie. claws) into my chest just prior to launching him to some (presumably) safe location. This amount of inertia imparted from my body to his roughly 15 pounds through the use of 15-20 sharp, curved hooks produced a typical response from me... including the traditional "wordless scream followed by a string of invectives", but as I didn't see where he went, instead of throwing the remote after him, I placed it back on the table and after checking my chest to make sure he hadn't ripped me open down to the bone, I went up to my real bed. I still had two hours and change left before I normally got up and was determined to make the most of it. After that incident, there was no way Jaxom would be coming near me for the rest of the night.

4:26am: Place your finger just under the tip of your nose and press upward, just the way mankind has been doing to impersonate pigs ever since mankind knew about pigs. Press just hard enough for it to be slightly uncomfortable. Now replace your finger with a furry paw, extended claws lightly brushing the sides of your nose. Not only had Jaxom returned, but he decided that me sleeping on my back was a clear invitation to curl up on my chest again. At some point, apparently sound asleep, he stretched and one of his paws connected gently (in a horrifying way) with my nose. I did not react violently, knowing what might happen if I did, but I picked him up by the scruff of the neck and stared into his face.

"What is wrong with you?" I said, but all I got was a meow. It was not a regular meow. It began sloppily, as if I had woken him up from a sound sleep (I probably had) and sounded more like "nnngeow".. as if to say "What's wrong with YOU? I was asleep you moron."

To be fair, this wasn't exactly his fault (if he really WAS asleep), but it capped the night (morning?) off with annoyance and the knowledge that I probably wasn't getting anything like real sleep anymore. In any event, I gave up trying and went into the kitchen to start some coffee brewing. Sitting quietly next to their food dishes were both the cats. They weren't making noise, but their stare was unmistakable. It said: "We know it's not time yet, but as long as you're up...."

Even my sleep-clogged, before-coffee mind knew that cats didn't use money, but if someone told me that Melody had bet Jaxom he couldn't get me up early to feed them without me knowing it was on purpose.... I would have believed it. It had to have been a bet.... otherwise, Melody would have helped out. In having cats in my house, I have come to know why some people are paranoid or afraid of them. Their expressions are so subtle, it lets your mind speculate on what they might not be telling you. After all, they were worshiped in ancient Egypt. No doubt they long for the good old days....