While one cat curls up sound asleep at the foot of my daughter’s bed enjoying the warmth of the heater and the quiet sound of her breath the other is running the length of the house and back in the blink of an eye. He weighs all of five pounds but manages to produce the same audio effect as a small pack of horses clomping along at breakneck speed around a track. When he’s through with that he engages in, from the sound of it, a roman style wrestling match with each of the gods on Mount Olympus in reverse alphabetical order. It’s not unheard for him to then sit by the back door and howl to his friends to come over for a party. He’ll keep calling out to all his little kitty friends until he remembers that he’s an indoor cat and the only other cat he knows hates him at the moment because he’s trying to sleep. When done with the party invites, he’ll go spend some time leading a massive dig effort with what sounds like several contracting companies in what I can only assume he believes to be an untouched part of Egypt where another great pyramid and several mummies will be found. Eventually he’ll find where in the vast miles of litter box he wants to take a piss and fire the teams he brought on.
It’s not long after this that he usually tires of his adventures and settles down with certainty that he has accomplished whatever goal he has set in mind for the night, but sometime during the whole ordeal another chain of events will be set in motion.
My kid will wake up so irritated by his racing, wrestling, chatting, or digging that she’ll climb out of bed disturbing the quiet sleepy cat who will begin to meow in displeasure, yell at the racing, wrestling, chatting, digging cat to stop doing whatever he’s doing, and when that doesn’t work (it never works) storm into my room with an air of desperation demanding that I do something about his behavior. You see my daughter seems to believe that I have a magic power that will force the cat to not behave like an insane asshole in the middle of the night. I mean obviously since I can sleep through his shenanigans I must have an answer. And I need to deal with it. Right then and there. At 2:16 am. You know, when I would much rather be sound asleep.
She doesn’t seem to like it very much when I suggest that she employ the method which I’ve used all these long years to withstand his strange kitty quests and tirades. That she possesses the same power over him as I. The magic is within her as well. It passes directly from mother to daughter in a line going back further than I can know.
She’s not ready or willing to take her place in the seat of power. But someday I have faith that she will make me proud and will do as so many have before to fight the cat crazies of the night. The night will come when she, just like her mother, will close her bedroom door.
And when that night comes I will be too busy getting a good night’s sleep to be proud of her.
