I Learned My Lesson

Statement:  I have allowed my stubbornness to get the best of me.

When:  3:30 - Thursday AND Friday mornings

Where:  bedroom, bathroom (and other places that I’m not at 3:30 in the morning)

Who: - The Cats.  Specifically, Fry and Goblin

 

Yesterday morning we were jolted awake at the unreasonable hours of pre-dawn with a crash from the bathroom.  The (always closed) toilet seat makes a distinctive sound when pounced upon by a feline fiend.  It makes a similar sound when an aforementioned feline fiend knocks something down from the window above the toilet.  Of course I have plants and rocks there – things that are breakable.  I knew almost instantly what had fallen.  Nay, what had been knocked down with intention – a propagating pothos in a jar (newly refilled with water!) and a beautiful (and delicate!) Hindu rope plant in a heavy (and not cheap!) white ceramic planter with perfectly un-hydrated soil.  Thankfully, the plants were fine.  The pothos went back into the jar of water and I was able to temporarily stuff the delicate rope plant back into the chipped planter.  But, on the floor, under the basket that lives on the back of the toilet, IN the basket that lives on the back of the toilet, IN the toilet, and somehow even on the towels housed on the opposite wall, was a mess of what was quickly becoming mud.  I chose self-preservation and decided to sop up what water I could but would sweep up the dirt later in the morning (after my alarm) when it was hopefully more dried and not a muddy, streaky mess.  I went back to bed.  Goblin “helped” me clean up his mess by playing in the water and batting around the leca balls that had been dislodged from the soil.  He also supervised the sweeping later that morning while stationed ON the dust pan.  Such a good, helpful boy.

And this morning, in the unreasonable hours of pre-dawn my slumber was yet again disturbed, but this time it was the known thunks and plinks of tchotchkes being swatted down from the trinket shelf above my dresser.  This is where I could have made better choices.  I said a few unsavory things to the culprit (Fry) and demanded she get off my dresser.  She did not comply.  I decided that I was awake enough to go potty.  I could have, nay, SHOULD have stumbled into the kitchen to feed the swarm of cats.  Not one to reward poor behavior, however, I refused to do so.  I grumbled some non-affectionate things and snuggled back under the covers.  The Hound Girls were not disturbed by the commotion.   Just as I was drifting back to the comforts of early morning slumber – plink, thunk.  This time I again demanded that Fry remove herself from the situation.  Again, she refused.  I chucked my chapstick in her general direction.  She was unphased.  She smugly sat there, on my dresser, glaring at me.  I threw off the covers and had one foot on the floor before she scampered away.  This sequence happened probably 3 more times along with at least one more trip to the potty, maybe two.  I could have chosen to feed them at any point.  But no.  As my 12 minutes of sleep came to an end with the chiming of my alarm, Scott looked at me and asked if it wouldn’t have been easier to just feed them.

Yes.  Lesson learned.