Shmoggleberry

Shmoggleberry has learnt that he can demand breakfast at some hideous hour. I have learnt how to ignore him. I thought we were on a pretty level playing field - every technique he used to try to get me out of bed, I had a tactic to counter it with. This has escalated into a full scale war, with the bedroom as a battlefield. Now to be fair, if Joel is awake, he will feed Shmoggleberry and let me sleep in peace. Joel is exceptionally cranky if he wakes up when he's not ready to face the day, and since I'm by the far the lighter sleeper, Shmoggleberry usually pulls his "feed me, mere mortal" strife on me.

Last night we both had a "big night" and we both wanted a good sleep in. Unfortunately, Shmoggleberry had other ideas:

He sat on the floor next to the bed, staring at me intently, willing me to wake up.
I woke up, saw him, and rolled over. Joel kept snoring.

Shmoggleberry jumped on the bed - Boing!
I moved over to give him room. Joel kept snoring.

He stuck his cold wet nose on my cheek.
I lazily tickled him under the chin. Joel kept snoring.

He started to purr like a badly tuned Harley in my ear.
I pretended to be deaf. Joel kept snoring.

He let out an inquisitive "mrr?"
I stuck my head under the pillow. Joel kept snoring.

He howled his frustrations about the lack of breakfast to the world "Awroooooooo!!!!!"
I threw the pillow at him. Joel kept snoring.

He jumped on my (rather tender - you know what I mean, girls) chest, and started kneading.
I turned over rather quickly, heaving him off me, and quickly hid under the doona and pillow. Joel kept snoring.

Now Shmoggleberry isn't the smartest cat on earth, but he's got your basic cat cunning, which usually serves him well enough. He knew I was awake, but ignoring him. He also knew it was fairly pointless to try his normal morning barrage on Joel, so he slunk away somewhere to devise a cunning plan. Because I was now left in peace, I drifted slowly back into that wonderful cozy place...

"YAAAARGH! YOU LITTLE F***ING MONGREL, I'LL F***ING KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE F***ING BASTARD!!!!!" shattered my slumber. "IT BIT MY F***ING TOE!!! FEED THAT BLOODY THING BEFORE I CATCH IT AND WRING ITS F***ING NECK!!!.".

"Um, Ok," I said, and got up to feed the victorious beast.

Joel went back to snoring.

The staring didn't work. The boinging on the bed didn't work. The cold, wet nose and the power-purring didn't work. The Mrring didn't work, nor did the howls of frustration. His usual last resort of pounding my chest had also been vanquished. Nothing Shmoggleberry could do to me was going to work, so I thought I'd finally won the last round. However, I hadn't thought of what Joel could do to wake me up - obviously Shmoggleberry had.

Joel was very apologetic later about his colorful language - he isn't entirely cognizant when he is woken up against his will - but I think that it is Shmoggleberry that should do the apologizing. Fancy getting me out of bed at 11:55am! I hope that slop called "cat food" was worth it.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
December 30, 1998