Oct
7
Last night while I was lying in bed and the cat was going absolutely crazy all over the damn house with what I have come to call The Cat 11 PM Flimflams (as in, “Goddammit, Cat has the Flimflams again . . . oh right, look what time it is.”), I started googling things like So Are Cats Nocturnal Or Like What’s Going On Here, and How Can I Encourage My Cat to Calm the Fuck Down At Night Before I Kill Her By Driving a Pencil Into Her Tiny Helpless Brain-Meat.
It turns out there is lots of advice on this topic, the main point being that you should try and swap your cat’s natural schedule by keeping her active during the day. I was sort of eye-rolling over the idea of adding “Entertain Cat” to my daily list of to-dos, but then I got to this one simple phrase on a web page titled “How to Stop the Night Time Crazies”:
Discourage catnapping.
Okay, I can’t really explain it, but I started laughing at that and could not stop. Discourage catnapping. Oh my god.
So I was already in a semi-hysterical state when I came across this advice under the paragraph heading “Sneak Attacks”:
If he is meowing outside the bedroom door, first reach for the water sprayer
Heh. Ha. First reach for the water sprayer.
… quietly get out of bed and creep towards the door …
Haaaaaa. CREEP TOWARDS THE DOOR.
then suddenly fling the door open, squirt the cat and then immediately shut the door
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH SUDDENLY SQUIRT THE CAT. IMMEDIATELY SHUT THE DOOR.
At this point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, and I had tears running down both sides of my face. I was trying to read this out loud to JB, who kept looking at me with great annoyance and saying, “I don’t get it. This isn’t even remotely funny.”
Try to stay alert for five minutes …
HAAAA TRY TO STAY ALERT. HAAA. FIVE MINUTES. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
By the time I got to the final sentence I could barely choke it out (JB: *giant impatient sigh*) and then I had to rush to the bathroom because I was thisclose to peeing my pants.
waiting by the door with the water sprayer ready in case of a second attack.
I don’t even know, you guys. As I type this, I’m laughing all over again. IN CASE OF A SECOND ATTACK. Oh god why is that so funny WHYYYY.
Anyway, I have no real point in sharing this, except 1) I love the Internet, and 2) holy crap I hate the Cat Flimflams.
Comments
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Oh man, that is too funny. Like you’ll have the patience to sit around waiting for that second attack when you’ve already been woken from a deep slumber and want to do nothing more than strangle the nearest breathing thing in sight.
From what I’ve heard, cats are pretty dormant during the day (i.e., noted catnapping), but then turn to hunting during the noctunal hours. Even if a cat is an indoor cat, they still have the instinct to go bat shit crazy come night fall.
I use my Defurminator to comb the cats and then felt it into a ball. (why do folks think it is gross- wool is felted sheep hair). I make these cat toys all the time and for some reason the cats attack the poo outta them.
Here the link to my long ago blog post on how to make them (http://poditan.blogspot.com/2009/03/felted-cat-balls.htmlhttp://poditan.blogspot.com/2009/03/felted-cat-balls.html)
We got a kitten about a month ago. I FEEL YOUR PAIN. And now that we don’t shut her in the bathroom at night, this little less than 4 pound creature wants to sleep (you know, btwn Flimflams) between me and my husband, under the blankets. Last night he threw her to my side of the bed – and she grabbed my boob with her sharp kitten claw on her way down. Holy ouch!! I’m encouraging intense play time right before bed and it seems to help (knock on wood).
I was laughing pretty hard at that too; the sneak attack is pretty funny. I would say the best advice to make sure you play with your cat EVERY DAY for at least an hour. Not all at once but collectively. Cat’s are really intelligent/curious animals and get bored really easily, so if you don’t entertain them, they will do it themselves. A lot of people think since cats are independent they don’t need as much attention but they do! And playing more makes them like you more, so win win.
HAAAAahahahahaha this made me laugh and cringe at the same time. My current cat is actually NOT nocturnal… it is awesome! She sleeps at the foot of the bed and only meows if I jiggle her with my foot. She actually sleeps more soundly than me! I think it’s karma rewarding me for my last cat who…
Would wait outside my bedroom door at night and if I got up to use the bathroom would leap out of the darkness and nip my ankle. Every single time. I was so terrified to walk out of my bedroom!
Would sit on the floor below my head in the darkness and WHAP! Whip my face with his paw. Waking up from a sound sleep to a cat’s paw across the face is really startling!
And when he wasn’t busy doing those things he would walk around the bedroom meowing at the top of his lungs. My boyfriend claimed not to hear anything. ???!!! I really don’t know how I lived with that cat for so long! Sometimes I would be so beside myself that I’d turn on the shower and toss him in. Hahahaha oh my that was funny! But it never made a difference :(
I got some “all natural” drops at the cat store because they told me it would help calm my crazy cat. My cat got drowsy and fell asleep instantly. That’s when I looked at the ingredients and it’s almost all alcohol. I can’t believe I got my cat drunk!
merci pour ce correctif…et encore, s’il n’y avait que ça…@Martin : encore une fois bravo. Cette tendance à mettre la charrue avant les boeufs est tellement agaçante…
Jasmine GravesDecember 11, 2012Glad to know that you had a wonderful time and your fiancee makes you so happy. I hope that one day that you two will be together for a very long time. I have been watching your videos and I love them so I subscribed. I hope everything that you plan to do works? out for you. Best Wishes. ^_^