Dalekins and I are sharing our bed with another. I don’t know when this decision was made, or whether I had a choice actually, but it is what it is… and I can tell you, that it’s damn annoying when you have to not only fight for attention, but for the room to move!
Especially when the 3rd party… is black. Fluffy. Goes by the name o
f … lets call him...Zeus (that’s because that’s his real name and cats who can scratch your face off don’t need pseudonyms). Weighs in at 6kg’s and who’s fangs stick out, ever so slightly all the time – just in case he ever NEEDS to intimidate you!
Yes, I’m talking about the cat mom. I feel the need to quickly point that out before I get a phone call from my mum yelling about hell and damnation and is that why she found handcuffs under the bed last time she was there… (what I ask, are you doing under my bed mom?) :)
Anyhoo I digress… let me fill you in on my little predicament that I now find myself in. That being that I now have to fight to get a small space in the bed to sleep in (Heaven forbid I need to roll over). It usually starts with me standing at the foot of the bed looking forlornly at Dale who is curled up snoozing away like a little kitten in the middle of the bed (only he twitches a lot, so it’s more like a kitten on CRACK!) and to the left of him… Zeus. Who has now taken to sleeping horizontally across what he deems as being HIS side. What happened to cats curling themselves up… noooo he tries to make himself… longer.
And there’s what’s left for me to sleep on… a few small centimetres. So I have now taken to getting into bed and doing a small exercise called a “Bed angel”. Lie down and do a VIOLENT horizontal jumping jack :) smack the sleeping little crack addicted kitten sleeper next to you a few times, and he’ll move up eventually. Me mumbling as I try and move him over about “encroachment… selfish…” and him mumbling as he goes… “..bed nazi…” and all the while… there lies Zeus… snoring away none the wiser.
A little history on Zeus. He was a pick up cat who kind of adopted my mom. He was dirty, smelly, scared of everything and never made a sound, not even a single meow when he was found. My mom took him in and he became Zeus. Now don’t feel sorry for him, he is a gorgeous cat, and he knows it! Long black hair, yellow eyes… he’s like... the Brad Pitt of the cat world.
In comes Dalekins and I. Now Dale was allergic to cats when we started going out. He would sit on the couch and look at Zeus as if he was a roach who had just crawled out of his baked potato! Swollen eyes, sneezing, being unable to breathe, but he stuck around (that’s cause I am AWESOME :P). When asked why he took such a serious dislike to Zeus… his words were… “because he’s pretty… and fluffy… like those stupid dogs that you carry in a handbag…. You just kind of want to boot him over the wall” Dale’s more of a Boerbull-rip-your-face-off kind of guy.
So I was concerned when Dalekins and I moved in together. How would he take to the cat. Little did I know. This was going to be a love made in heaven. I don’t quite know when this happened, but Zeus took a serious liking to Dale, and Dale who quickly lost his allergy reciprocated… and then some. To the point where Zeus finally starting meowing, having long conversations, but only with Dale.
Zeus and Dale are now inseparable! Zeus will follow Dale EVERYWHERE. He sits with him when Dale goes for a wee, he sits with Dale when he is bathing, when he’s brushing his teeth. Zeus waits outside for Dale every afternoon and runs to his car door for attention as soon as he arrives.
I’m thinking STALKER. Helloooooooooo Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii am the one that feeds you cat!! Where’s my love!
See now… I find myself at the back of the queue!
If there was a fire in our house, I would be the SECOND thing Dale would save. First would be his precious little cat, then me. Oh no wait. Make that the third thing he would save!
Dalekins priority list:
- Zeus! - Tub of Vanilla Ice-cream - Tash – after having a few cooling mouths of vanilla ice-cream and rubbing Zeus’s head for a bit…. Then Tash. After getting that feeling like he’s forgotten something.
You think I’m exaggerating don’t you! Hmmm I present my evidence:
- Dale will NOT go to sleep unless Zeus is on the bed next to him. He will actually go in search of him, even if the poor thing is curled up sleeping in the lounge, Dale will fetch him and carry him to the room because “I don’t like it when you not sleeping with us….”
- Dale will move the bath mat around the entire bathroom to find a nice warm spot for Zeus to lie on (so his little bum doesn’t get cold on the tiles) Makes for interesting language when I am trying to get out of the bath dripping wet with nothing to stand on because the bath mat has a big black furry thing on it and is on the other side of the bathroom!
- Dale (and this is a true story) will put pieces of chicken or fish in his mouth and suck off the sauce and spice before giving it to Zeus… “Whaaaaaaaaat … he doesn’t like it when there’s spices on his snack” (Dale would be a great father…. If he were a penguin, or a bald headed eagle perhaps)
- Dale likes to give Zeus a “lift” from the car to the house… “Here Tash hold the keys, my wallet, and all our monthly Pick n’ Pay shopping, I have to carry Zeus to the house” (because his paws are broke?) In comes Tash walking like a packhorse….
- Dale CANNOT I repeat CANNOT be the disciplinarian when Zeus is being a brat. This cat LOVES scratching the bed. Has scratched it to absolute pieces, and I can tell you why. Because every time he does it, Dale leans over and instead of giving him a smack on the arse... oh no… he gets a rub on his head to quieten him down. Good kitty…. You stop scratching the bed now… now of course Zeus has now learnt the fast track to getting rubs! Forcing ME to now dive over Dale to the other side of the bed like a banshee to give him a hiding. Dales excuse for not smacking him…? “I caaaaaaaaaan’t do it! When I lift my hand up he squints his face up like he’s expecting the beating of his life, I just caaaaaaaaaaaaan’t” And the one time I actually saw Dale smack Zeus… well, Dale says smack, I say gave him a bit of a hard pet on the bum, he immediately looked at me like I was the bad person and said “see I CAN discipline him” and looked all hurt and angry with ME!! … and then I felt like a bad person until I saw Dale immediately hang his hand over the bed and rub Zeus’s head! “What the HELL Dale… you can’t smack him and then immediately give him a rub, he’s supposed to be learning a lesson that he’s a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad cat!” cue Dales confused face… “whaaaaaat? I waited the allotted 5 seconds after the hiding before I rubbed him”… *looks up at the heavens for help* Dale… my sweet… the 5 second rule only works when you drop a fried egg on the floor, yes you can snatch it up and put it back on your toast (notice I said YOUR toast)… hidings however, can’t realllllly work with the same concept!
- And the best evidence…? Dale sings Zeus lullabies…. In CAT! Yes… take any bedtime lullaby that you know. Now instead of humming. Meow it.
I am totally screwed in the attention stakes. You wouldn’t think I would have competition from something who wakes us up at 5am for his breakfast by standing on your chest with all his weight and just staring at you until you wake up (he USED to jump over us lightly but oh no, not anymore) now he stomps on you. Or repeatedly puts his icey nose on your forehead… hard to ignore.
I wonder if I would get MY head rubbed and my breakfast if I woke Dale up by balancing on his chest every morning….