Their names today are Pest and Punk. It started last night and went downhill from there. Right about 11:00PM, when I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed, I discovered that one of them had left a "gift" in the middle of the bed. I'm still unable to identify the exact body fluid that made a large smelly damp spot on the blanket, sheet, and mattress, but it smelled a bit like partly processed cat food, so I'm guessing someone threw up. When I mentioned to Carl that there was something on the bed, he promptly asked, "Whose side?" Mine, of course. We yanked all the sheets off the bed, sprayed the mattress with Nature's Miracle, and lay down on the dry side of the bed (with no sheets) to wait for the cleaner to dry. About an hour later we woke up, put clean sheets on the bed and went back to sleep.

We were awakened about 5:30AM by the sound of Zorro overturning a half-full water glass Carl had (unwisely) left on the nightstand. We both cursed, turned on the light, shooed the cats out and shut the door, and spent the next 20 minutes wiping down wet cassette tapes. The water had gone not only on the top of the nightstand and on the floor, but had also gotten down into the drawer where Carl keeps his tapes. After drying off all the tapes and leaving them stacked on the dresser, we crawled back into bed to sleep for another hour, leaving the door closed so they wouldn't bother us anymore.

The Z-boys were having none of that. They decided to engage in a tussle right outside the closed bedroom door that seemed to involve repeatedly banging their heads into the door. Then Zorro began crying and scratching at the carpet under the door. By now it was about 6:15 and he knew it was time to wake us up. I got up, opened the door, squirted him in the face, and slammed the door again. I was in no mood to be forgiving. I got back into bed grumbling and determined to "sleep" until 7:00AM.

Less then five minutes later, Zorro was back at it again. This time Carl got up and squirted him, then went to the bathroom, thence to the kitchen and gave them breakfast in an attempt to distract them. When he came back, I told him to leave the door open, since there was no real point in keeping it closed anymore. Or was there? Zorro came in shortly thereafter, walked over our heads, and promptly started knocking over the stacks of cassette tapes with loud clatters. At this point I was formulating recipes for kitten stew in my head. We removed him from the dresser and encouraged him to settle down on the bed by skritching his ears until he flopped over. Where he promptly began violently chasing his tail. I threw him off the bed, according to our strict rule that there is to be No Horseplay on the bed. We settled back down and about two minutes later we were violently disturbed by Zorro galloping over our heads with Zephyr in hot pursuit. I threw them both to the floor per our SOP, where they engaged in a quick game of Get Under the Blanket and Scratch Madly at The Side of The Mattress. By this time it was 6:59AM and I gave up on having another moment of peace. Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit groggy this morning.

Copyright © Tess
March 5, 2001