Shmoggleberry

Last night I went out with the summer vacation students to celebrate their last week at work, and I had just enough drinks to leave me feeling light-headed and happy, without getting me so drunk I'd suffer the consequences the next day. (I can't say the same for most of the others). I wasn't feeling wonderful when I got home and basically flopped into bed, and I did get to sleep despite the world slowly spinning around me. (I'm a 3-drink screamer) Shmoggleberry has always been a bit of a nurse cat, and jumped up on the bed to help me feel better. Yes, yes, nice cat, let me sleep. I wasn't in the mood for Shmoggleberry's attentions as I knew there was really nothing wrong me, besides a bit too much alcohol.

As soon as I got to sleep, Shmoggleberry started licking me. Yes, yes, go away. And then started nuzzling me. Hmm, yes, nice puss, good cat, will you go away if I pat you a few times? [absent minded pat]. I got about an hours sleep before he decided that I would be much happier if he was curled up under my chin. As you folks know, I'm allergic to cats, and although my body is fairly used to Shmoggleberry's dander, I don't usually stuff my nose into his fur. It doesn't matter when I've go a cold, because I'm already sneezing and feeling "allergic" anyway, but its not so good if I'm otherwise fine.

"Mumf - gorf mogf, nsh gf awarf", I said to the cat, as I tried to talk with a mouth full of purring fur, roughly translated as "Mmm, good moggy, now go away". Of course it did no good, he was sitting vigil, and no feeble cries of my delirium would persuade him from nursing me back to health. "Ffffinf catf", I said, which needs no further translation.

I turned over, and he moved nearer to the bottom of the bed. Later I got one of those drunken leg-spasms and kicked him. He hiss-spitted, scaring the daylights out of me, and bit my foot. I put forth a brief comparison between manure and cats, and tried to go back to sleep, preferably with Shmoggleberry in one of his regular sleeping spots outside the bedroom.

Hah! I had one determined nurse-cat. No matter how much I "encouraged" him to leave, he had the grizzly determination of a no-nonsense matron when dealing with a "difficult" patient. After about the fifth time I had removed him from the bed, he started yowling in protest. And yowling. And yowling.

In my not-quite-lucid condition, I couldn't tell the difference between a feed-me yowl and any other sort of yowl. Defeated, I trotted out to the kitchen, extracted the gunk from the cat-food can, filled up the crunchie container and changed his water. No doubt he was thrilled to get breakfast two and a bit hours early. Although whilst he was eating he was quite (except for slurping and crunching noises), he returned to his previous activity of peeling the wallpaper off the walls as soon as his mouth was empty.

Yowwwwwwwwwwwl....Meeerooooooooooo!....Eeerowwwwwww!. "Ffffinf catf", I repeated, several times.

Right! Time for action! I grabbed "bloody cat" (his name changes according to my mood), plunked myself and the offending critter on the bed, and tucked him under the arm. "Right," I snapped at him, "you've got what you wanted, now stay on the bed, and shut the fur up". He, of course answered with one of his angelic "What? Who, me?" looks and a pure-as-the-driven-snow purr.

So there I was, cat pinned under arm, fur tickling my armpit, the smug expression on his face burned onto my retinas, trying to go back to sleep after having a bit of a bender the night before.

Finally, finally, The Beastie and I started to drift off into the land I had been absent from most of the night. Then the alarm went off. Then Shmoggleberry demanded breakfast. Yes, its good that I've got him to associate breakfast time with the alarm sounding, but no, its not good that he now wants breakfast when the alarm sounds, no matter how full his tummy is.

Lucky for me, other people here at work have hangovers. I've been told that I look like death warmed up, and that I must have had a damn good night. Although pretending to have the mother of all hangovers is doing precisely nothing for my reputation as "solid, sensible, professional", it's better than explaining to my peers the real reason behind my gaunt and sunken look: my cat has nursing instincts that go just a little too far, and he kept me awake all night with kitty-kindness. They already think I'm mad here, if I tell them, it will just confirm their suspicions.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
February 2, 1999