I have three cats.  BabyCat is my old girl, getting up there in years but as needy and neurotic as ever.  Then there are The Boys. Marley and Sheldon.   I may not have mentioned Marley before (named after Bob Marley), who is really no more than a big kitten, or catlet, since he is over 6 months but less than a year old.  That’s him above in my daughter’s arms, and he’s every bit as devilish as he looks.

Marley and Sheldon (my black and white tuxedo, pictured below) have a morning routine that works every time.  There is no way I’m getting back to sleep when they team up for their daily torment regimen.

Sheldon taught Marley a neat trick: knocking small objects off dressers, tables, etc.  Sheldon always did this to get attention, and he’d keep looking at you while he slowly extended his paw toward the object, slowly pushing it to the precipice, as if to make sure you were paying attention.   After the object fell, he’d yawn.  Jerk.

Now, Marley does this too.   Talk about double trouble.  I have a tag team of furry little monsters who like to cause mayhem in my bedroom every morning.    They do this to try to wake me up for a variety of reasons, or no reason at all.

Usually it works, because I’ll be out of bed chasing the little demons as they scamper off into the kitchen, or whatever.    They go to their respective food bowls, which usually have some food left in them, except at that time of day, a patch of the bowl at the bottom is visible.   To The Boys, if they can see the bottom of the bowl, there isn’t any food there and they are going to starve to death!  Fill my bowl before I die, human!

If the knocking objects onto the floor tactic doesn’t work, The Boys come up on the bed as I’m trying to sleep.  They have assigned roles, apparently:  Sheldon walks on my face, purring loudly and sometimes meowing pitifully into my ear.    He knows well enough not to extend his claws into my face while he’s walking on it, but sometimes he will deliver a juicy fart!    If he opts to walk on the soft underside of my arm or another soft, tender part of my body which I won’t name here instead, sometimes he will start to knead my  flesh like so much bread dough!  Ouch!   Meanwhile, Marley is scaling the curtains, batting some noisy object around on the hardwood floor, or leaping up on the dresser pushing things to the edge.

Once I get out of bed, I’m usually grumpy and cuss at them.  They go to their half empty food bowls and look at me as if to say, “what’s wrong, human? Why are you so upset?”  Sometimes they aren’t even hungry and just don’t want me to sleep in, or they want to go outside, even if it’s pouring rain and there’s no way they’ll stay out once they get there.

I love my little furry psychopaths and would do anything for them, but why can’t they let me sleep late sometimes?