Mornings
Small and I have a morning ritual. By ritual, I mean a series of events that happen to me whether I like them or not.
The ritual begins with me sleeping soundly, as I do most mornings. I am woken by earthquake-like rumblings (6 on the Richter scale of purring), right beside my head. In fact, right up against my head, so that my brain begins to vibrate. Any pet owner knows that it is impossible to conceal a waking state from an animal. Small knows I am awake, so there is really no point in me trying to pretend I am still sleeping. She follows the purring with a “meep”. My response is to say, “Small, go away, I am Sleeping.” Since it is early, this comes out as “Stfxblrgh.”
I snuggle my head back into my pillow. Small raises her voice and says “Meep.” I try to explain that I am still sleepy.
“MEEP.” An escalation in the purring follows, along with Small parking her face or butt right in MY face. Politely, I respond to these tactics by saying “GO AWAY of there will be Punching In The Face.” Small raises her “MEEP” to several “MEEPs”, and I receive more cat-in-face action.
“No, Small, get thee gone. Punching In The Face will shortly follow.”
“MEEEP!!”
“GO AWAY, I am still trying to sleep. Do you WANT to be Punched In The Face?”
“MEEEEEP!!”
I know that to get up now would be to pander to her desires, so I try to put it off for as long as possible. If I feed her, she will only see it as a reward for having woken me up and subjected me to her series of demands.
Unfortunately, I have no choice. As long as she is unfed, this stupid animal will continue yelling at me. So I feed her, as I do every morning, and she reaps her reward. Big is, of course, silent throughout these proceedings. I’m almost certain that she wakes Small up each morning and tells her to go make food happen. She has too much dignity to actually ask for anything herself.
