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June 02, 2006

A night-time prowler...

I have been the "victim" of a home invasion before.

For some reason, last night, I decided to go to bed in my boxers. It was a gut feeling; I can't explain it.

There is something intensely satisfying in the thought that your brain can assess a situation before you're even awake or have even opened your eyes. It's like those Westerns where the sleeping hero wakes out of a deep sleep and instantly has his gun trained right on the bad guy.

So, when my sleeping brain heard someone going through the change tray on the bedside table about a foot from my head at 1:45 this morning, you can bet that my brain kicked into "get ready for a smackdown" mode pretty quickly. I was ready to take the intruder down before I even saw him.

My eyes popped open and my arm lashed out.

And the only intruder was the frikkin' cat. Who was in our room. Which is not allowed. And was on my bedside table. Which is really not allowed. And was attempting to get through the screen in our bedroom window. Which is really, REALLY not allowed.

Upon receipt of my instinctive arm gesture, he dashed out of the room. He knew he wasn't allowed there.

He's been the source of some bad behaviour in the past but he's well aware that our bedroom is off limits and this was bold and extreme even for him. Fawn lay beside me, wide awake. I'm sure her adrenaline was pumping just as much as mine. "He won't be trying that again any time soon," I thought.

Yet within minutes, he sneaking back into the room.

"What is it with this darned cat?" I wondered.

I got up to investigate. I found him looking out the kitchen window, tail twitching, jaw clicking. This is the body language that lets me know he's hunting something and is getting frustrated about it. But what is he hunting?

Tonight, while I was doing some gardening, I found some cat prints in the vegetable bed that weren't his. Is he trying to get together with another cat? It won't do him any good. He hasn't had the equipment for a while.

As I type this, he is yowling and mewing and pacing around the house. Maybe the vet didn't do her job after all. I'm afraid the cat is going to keep Fawn awake and is doing to disturb Jade.

The adrenaline is slowly draining out of my system and I think that maybe now I'll be able to fall asleep. But there's just one thing I need to do first.

Crook, I hope you enjoy spending the night in the laundry room, because you may have to get used to it.

1 comment:

Meandering Michael said...

After I finished this blog entry, I found the cat fast asleep on the couch downstairs. It was with great satifaction when I woke him up and locked him in the laundry room. I don't think he quite shared the same sense of justice.