I woke up to the sound of a thin hardcover book falling off my bookshelf.
Not the work of a ghost, no — the calculated craft of a certain cat who needed to make me aware that it was breakfast time (for him) and that I needed to get up and take care of it.
Most mornings, it’s that sound, rather than one of my alarms, that actually gets me out of bed, because if I ignore that first book falling, well that fluffy little rascal will topple another and another. Sometimes, he’ll even pull down two or three at a time if he’s feeling particularly impatient.
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention: this is how I wake up almost every morning.
He’s had several years to refine his morning routine to be as efficient as possible. He used to try to nudge my shoulder or face, but I would just retreat under the duvet. He then began crawling under my pillow to force me to lift my head and would refuse to budge until I actually got out of bed. But what I ended up doing when I was too sleepy to do so was curling up and laying my head directly on the mattress. So he had to think outside the box.
He realized that there was a set of 8 slim hardcover children’s books on my bookshelf perfectly within his reach from the nearby dresser; not only does he get 8 energy efficient tries (sponsored by gravity) to wake me up, he also knows that I have to actually get out of the bed to stop him (he’ll simply give me a look and raise his paw to the next book if I say “No!” or “Stop that!”). I doubt he realizes that I’m worries about the neighbour downstairs hearing the thunk of the book hitting the floor, but that enters the equation for me too.
All this to say, it was a 2-book morning for me, and the little rascal responsible for this? Well, he’s now taking a well-deserved post-breakfast nap.
