Beloved Memphis, the pretty orange cat whom you've all come to know and love, is a royal pain in the ass daily, at some unpredictable time that's predictably between 4 and 7 a.m. I think the catalyst for her waking up is one of us stirring in our sleep - I become slightly conscious of her leaning on my leg but needing to move it, and as soon as there's a hint of daylight those movements seem to indicate to her that it's time to get up! And get fed! So she starts walking across the bed. That doesn't seem like a huge deal, right? Consider: At bedtime, when she's settling in, she might walk across the bed a couple of times without touching either of the humans lying in it. She'll step over legs, arms, torsos until she finds a good spot. In the morning? I swear to God every single paw touches every single human body part with each crossing. It. Is. Fucking. Annoying. If one of us then moves in her direction she takes off, only to return a few minutes later and do the same thing.
Her other M.O. is to poke one of us with her paw - in the butt, in the back, shoulder, whatever she can find. It isn't a gentle poke, either - it's as hard as a person would poke. And it. Is. Fucking. Annoying.
Sometimes I don't think she's the brightest cat, but she definitely learns. I've started locking her in the bathroom when she wakes me up at ungodly hours (anytime before 7 a.m.), but she's onto that, so the moment I sit up she hides under the bed. For a couple of days going out to the kitchen and standing beside her food bowl was enough to get her to show herself, but two days ago I actually had to OPEN the can, and yesterday I had to set her (empty) bowl on the floor before she'd even tentatively peer around the corner.
OK, so we play this little game and finally she comes out from wherever she's hiding and I put her in the bathroom. I'd like to report that at this point I go back to bed and sleep peacefully until my alarm goes off, at which point I wake up well-rested. Sadly, that isn't the case. Instead, I go back to bed and am faced with one or more of the following scenarios.
1. I accidentally haven't pulled the bathroom door shut well enough, and so with enough pawing, the door eventually unlatches and it's wake-the-people o'clock again.
2. Memphis meows (the most pathetic mewling you can imagine) and paws at the door. Which thumps. While I can sleep through the mewling and thumping, I have trouble falling asleep to it. So I lie there, listening to the mewling/thumping, considering how many ways there really are to skin a cat.
3. She is quiet in the bathroom, and I'm convinced she's dead.
4. I worry about her comfort. I've read that cats don't do things out of spite but if the bathmat is on the floor when I put Memphis in the bathroom, there will inevitably be a turd in the middle of it, less than a foot away from her clean litter box. So, I put the mat over the side of the tub, then lie awake, worrying about Her Preciousness having to lie on the floor.
I don't know how I've lived with this for 11 (no, that's not a typo, ELEVEN) years, but here we are. I've scoured the internets for any tips on how to deal with this problem, and the most common advice is to ignore the pestering, but they don't offer any information on how to deal with the resulting sleep deprivation. The vet has recommended spraying her with water or compressed air. I've tried the water and the result was me lying half-awake loosely holding a spray bottle and waving it at Memphis every time she comes back to bug me, which is every 3 minutes, or every time her tiny brain forgets that there was some reason she wasn't in there continuously pestering me.
I'm certainly not the only cat owner with this problem, nor am I the only cat owner to lie awake at 4:30 a.m. considering the benefits of goldfish as pets. I can only hope that future generations' feline companions evolve into their domesticity and ease up on those nocturnal hunting instincts a little.
I know. I'm turning myself on, too.
