This Time, It Wasn’t the Phone.

A nap. That delightful suspension of animation and wakefulness blissfully surrendered to the call of Morpheus. That same thing we used to resent and fight against in our youth now beckons with open arms and promises of relief.

Unless you have a phone, then a nap is that wonderful state you reach right at that same moment someone thinks they must contact you. I love attempting to speak when I’ve been pulled from slumber. My conversations sound something like, “nnnaahhhmmmm-ello?” “Hi, did I wake you?”

Why would anyone ask that? I mean, seriously do I ALWAYS sound like that when I answer the phone? Because if I do, then I should head out to see a neurologist, STAT! I realize it is just the caller’s way of connecting with understanding and perhaps allowing me a few more seconds to wake up, or the chance to say, “Yeah, you did” and let them gracefully offer to call back in, say, 45 minutes or so.

However, my mouth does not cooperate with my desires and cannot form words other than, “no. m’wake.” This is usually accompanied by the sound of me attempting to regain the ability to speak coherently.

This last time, though, the phone stayed blissfully silent and sleep began to settle in for a much-needed reprieve. I was just about there, when most of the air was exited from my lungs by sudden pressure and highly localized pain in my midsection. That happens when a 15 pound cat notices I’m in “the chair” and leaps onto me. Following the initial discomfort of the arrival is the unpleasant “getting comfortable” phase, which is only comfortable for the cat.

Once she was settled and relaxed, I allowed my brain to once again disengage. Just as the last worry fluttered off to trouble someone else for a little while, THE OTHER CAT realized her sister was EXACTLY where SHE wanted to be, so she took the leap onto the heap. This caused a great deal of reorganizing and a do-over of the “getting comfortable” routine, only this time it was times two, and “cooperation” is not a familiar word to cats.

Me: “Oh! Hey! Can you please not stand RIGHT THERE, because you’re hitting a nerve and making my leg twitch.”

Freya Fish Whore: “She’s in my spot!”

Meow: “No I’m not! You’re just jealous because I was up here first!”

Me: “Actually, girls, I’m the one who was up here first.”

F.F.W. and Meow: “Shut up.”

FFW: “This isn’t about you.”

Meow: “This is OUR business.”

Me: “This was MY nap!”

Meow: “You call this a nap?”

Me: “Not any more. In fact, I’m thinking of calling this a slumber party, only without the slumber and not much party, either. I’d really like to have a nap.”

FFW: “You know nothing of naps. You wanna learn about naps, you gotta talk to a cat. Cats know naps.”

Meow: “Hey! Don’t touch my tail. You know I don’t like that.”

Me: “I didn’t touch your tail.”

Meow: “I wasn’t talking to you. Here, have my butt in your face while I chastise my sister.”

Me: “No thanks. I think it may need some attention. From you, not me.”

FFW: “She has the worst ass-crusties.”

Me: "I can see that. It's disgusting."

Meow: “Silence! Both of you!”

Me: “Ow! You’re on my boob!”

Meow: “Yes. Now I must make it squishier.”

Me: “No! That is not comfortable.”

Meow gives me a squint-eye and a feline shrug and begins to settle down with a purr.

FFW: “She’s going to put her bottom on your arm. All those ass-crusties right there on your furless flesh! Eeewwww!”

I still need a nap.