Fisters’ Journey -
Nocturnal Antics and Waking the Dead
Way back at the beginning of time, when Fister was a timid, nervous little fellow, our bed must have seemed to him as a daunting obstacle to surmount. But now, 5 happy, well fed and contented years later, it is a somewhat different story!
His first cautious incursions onto the bed took place at the bottom by Randis’ feet, she being the shorter of us. After getting used to that for a while, he started to come further up the bed and lie full length between us, finally ending up stretched way out on his back leaning against my body and enjoying orgies of tummy rubs. He could stretch from my knee to my shoulder when he was feeling REALLY good! Later he got bolder and started wandering about on my stomach and chest. The next step was of course to sleep ON me, and now it is a nightly habit, he lies draped elegantly across my stomach without a worry in the world. (Except if I have the temerity to move - this is not appreciated at all, but he will just about accept it now).
Then came the famous battle for the ultimate prize, Randis’ pillow. This has been well documented in “Battle of the Bed”, and nothing much has changed since. He lays curled up between our pillows every night now, often not leaving before the early morning light. He has perhaps gained another 10 cm of Randis pillow, but the situation there has now more or less stabilized.
The problem that has turned up since then is, that he considers this the ideal spot for a bit of serious washing and tidying up. This is most annoying, especially in the middle of the night, since he is a very NOISY and slurpy washer, and VERY thorough.
I don’t need this right next to my ear thank you very much!
If he’s in the middle of an important wash, there is practically nothing that can pursuade him to decease. Beat him over the head, push him, growl at him - no reaction. If we put our hand over him he will pause momentarily, then just continue washing in another spot. If we repeat this, he just continues to wash our hand instead. This is amazing since he is usally so timid. Even hissing at him, which worked in the beginning, doesn’t have much effect nowadays. He just looks disdainfully down his nose at you as if you are seriously deranged and in need of acute psychiatric help.
Oh-oh, busted again!
“Waking the Dead”
The actual domination of the physical territory was one thing, but he had another campaign running parallel to this concerning my sleeping habits. Fister, like most cats is the posesser of a merciless routine instinct, and anything that interferes with this is difficult for him to tolerate. If he wanted to get up early in the morning, why shouldn’t we also be woken? This lead to the “Waking the Dead” campaign.
Randi usually gets up before me in the morning, turning back her duvet leaving a large inviting space behind me. But this was not the route he chose for his first assault. I usually lie on my left side with my face pointing out of bed, with a space of about 5 cm between my nose and the edge of the bed. Fister decided that this was an excellent spot to hop up to and say good morning from. Unfortunately for him, suddenly receiving over 7 1/2 kilos of cat and two furry legs right in my face produced unexpected reactions, and after a few ungainly trips to the floor on his rump and receiving a dose of explosive verbal abuse, he realised that this was not the best way to tackle the problem. So he decided to be a bit more devious, and started creeping up on me from behind. Apparently he would first sit on the floor by the other side of the bed for a while, checking out the lay of the land and my apparent mood. Then he would hop carefully up, wander across the bed and stop just behind me.
Waiting for the right moment!
He would then wait for a while, stand up, and with his head above mine, bend down until his nose was about 2 cm from my ear and quietly say “MIAAW”. It is surprising how thunderingly loud a little sound can make when it’s right inside your ear. Although a very sweet and tender way of doing it, this also periodicaly provided unexpected, even violent reactions, until in the end I got used to it and learned to ignore it. So there he was back to square one again, I wouldn’t bow to his command! That did it. He then came up with the most fiendishly devilish plan imaginable to man or beast. I guarantee that this method would wake a Tibetan monk meditating! It requires that the subject is on his side sleeping peacefully and facing the cat. A small number of whiskers are then delicately inserted into the subjects nostril and simply wiggled about a bit. The result is always hugely amusing, and is an incredibly efficient way of converting a sleeping human being into a growling, writhing monster.
He he he!
Since these varied results were always so unpredictable, he has now changed his tactics completely. If you can’t beat them join them, as they say. His latest morning greeting is to scratch away at my duvet and stick his little bulldozer nose in and then come and have a nice little nap under the covers with me in the mornings!
When I do eventually get up, he will lose all interest in me and go and lay on the other side of the bed for a serious snooze.
The whole point of the excercise was only to get me up, after all!
john
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