IT WAS THE WORST BIT OF SLEEP I'VE EVER HAD, AND I'VE HAD 'EM ALL OVER THE WORLD

[spatch]

Those who do not comprehend how sleep deprivation can be a powerful instrument of psychological torture obviously have never owned a cat who likes to get up at 5:30 am, inspect the premises, and then loudly and continuously report back to you on what he's found.

Seriously. I was about ready to send him up in front of a UN Tribunal for violating the Geneva Convention. Every twenty fucking minutes it was something else. Hey hey hey look hey look hey look look hey hey look wake up and look let me back into the room damn you hey look look look. You're not supposed to interrupt REM sleep like that. Ow. Ow ow ow ow.

I think this was his revenge for my watching THE GODFATHER last night and hollering Jack Woltz's tirades at him. It makes him look ridiculous. AND A MAN IN MY POSITION CAN'T AFFORD TO BE MADE TO LOOK RIDICKILUS! Add to this the fact that Mr. The Cat is neither German nor Irish, so it's understandable why he was confused when I called him "my Kraut Mick friend."

But still. I need my REM sleep and get very upset when I do not get it. So as far as I was concerned this morning, Mr. The Cat could've gone and met himself a very nice tollbooth as long as it meant 45 more minutes of blessed dreamtime.

Comments

[sernin.livejournal.com]

Just about as bad as the black one that starts her song and dance at 5. HeyDidYouKnowThereIsTreatInTheKitchen?DidYou?Huh?DidYouHearMe?Treat!InTheKitchen!RightNow!ThereIsTreat!ItCouldBeOnMyPlate!Treat!RightNow!RightOnMyPlate!
She paws my face. She bites my arm. She sits on my hip, or my chest, or my lower belly, or wheverever she determines is best to wake me.

[spatch]

Martha was always the one who'd prod me awake. She learned to tap my shoulder to wake me up, and waking up to someone tapping your shoulder when you live alone is quite a blood pressure-raising experience. Abbie eschews physical nudging, opting instead for the aural approach. Meowing, rustling plastic bags, knocking things off the dresser, he's very good at that.

Though when I'm finally awake and puttering around and he feels especially directed, he'll lick my leg. God damn that cat is strange.

[sernin.livejournal.com]

Oh! Plastic bags are banned from the bedroom for that reason. As well as having anything on the bedside table. PawPawPaw. Book gets knocked to the floor. PawPawPaw. Alarm gets knocked to the floor. Now I just leave them on the floor, and she paws my face.

[limax.livejournal.com]

Compare that to the dog that's excited that the door to your room is open so that she can come in and leap right in the middle of your stomach while you're having one of the best erotic dreams ever...

[spatch]

...

[limax.livejournal.com]

What's really odd is that Bella (my cat) used to come in and jump on my stomach and then nudge me until I would pet her. She prefers now to sleep (when she's indoors at night) on my daughter's lower bunk.

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

This is why I have many cats. They do this to each other.

[silenceleigh.livejournal.com]

Greebo does this every morning.

It's 5:15 in the morning, and I get up and start to go pull my clothes on to go out for a run.

Me: *stealth stealth stealth try not to wake my partners stealth stealth*

Greebo: Hey hey hey hey HEY HEY you're awake LET ME OUT do you want to hear about all the air molecules LOOK THERE ARE STAIRS is it time for treats WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME?

Me: *quiet but deadly voice* look, your other humans get to sleep for three more hours--that is, if you don't wake them up. You GO OUT NOW.

The cat is cute. But he is also annoying.

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

That cat better watch it, or he'll be sleeping with the fishes.

[spatch]

I worry that'd just be positive reinforcement.

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

That's like the first time I cat-sitted for Mare a couple of Christmases ago. I felt sorry for them and left my door open when I went to bed (Christmas vacay so I went to sleep around 2-2:30am). The cats, however, decided they did not want to cuddle. They were bored. And so I had kitties constantly coming in and being noisy and making sure that I had no chance of getting to sleep.
The cats were duly ejected and the door closed at 4am...

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH oh god the pain.

Ziggy has decided that if I'm not up at five thirty, THE WORLD WILL FUCKING COME TO A GODDAMN END BETH OKAY GET UP GET UP MAO MAO MAO MAO MAO MAO MAO MAO

I'm thinking of taking up the violin.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

I know I'll probably be the one in front of the tribunal for this, but when that happens I put both kitties and a couple toys in the bathroom for an extended timeout (if it's going to be for, like, more than half an hour, such as starting at 5:30am) or, for a short timeout, just the icon kitty (she's the yeller) in the bathroom so that they can play "hey someone else's paws are sticking out from under that door!" and OMG LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a perfectly good strategy when/if I have kids, too. Oh yeah, I got it all figured out.

[muffyjo]

I'm sure he was simply inspecting the new treats and toys that the party and warm weather have brought.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

Your cat and my dog must be part of some underground society for the promotion of human sleep deprivation.

She is the sweetest, happiest dog I've ever known, but I'm not convinced it makes up for the 5:00am howls. Beagles are serious howlers. Had I known this a year ago, I'd have probably told my wife to find a different breed.

[amandaruth2001.livejournal.com]

Cat speech and pre-schooler speech are remarkably similar, that's all I have to say.

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

Cat timeouts take place in the closet.
Can't use that strategy on the baby though.

[johnnycanuck.livejournal.com]

The Kitty is much the same.

"Hello! I sleep 21.5 hours a day just so that I can wake you up at 4:00 AM to demand food. No, I know I never ever ever get fed at 4:00 AM, but it can't hurt to try, can it?

"What? you're not awake? Have a headbutt. Hmm, still faking sleep, huh? How about if I jump up on your shelves and start knocking everything over. This pile of change? Gone. Your little sculptures? Crash. The German beer stein? Wobble-

"Oh! You're awake! And you've picked me up! This must mean I'm getting food after all! And...

"Hey! Why'd you kick me out of your room and close the door?

"Hmpf. Just wait 'til he figures out why I'm hungry."

And that's usually when I step in cat sick.

[duchez.livejournal.com]

The cat's learned to open the bedroom door after two years. He somehow manages to turn the knob. So instead of being woken up at 5am by the cat butting his head and banging on the door, we are now woken up when the cat jumps into bed and tries to snuggle down. Good thing he hasn't decided to jump in the crib yet.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

Well, you don't have to put up with that. A friend of mine got fed up by their cat doing that all the time, in his case it was the "feed me *now*!" thing. He decided that *every* single freaking time the cat did that he was gonna pick up the cat and press it against his chest and pet the cat until it wanted to die or jump away. It didn't take more than half a dozen times for the cat to avoid his bedroom like the plague when they were asleep. Cats are rather bright creatures, and they are persistent. So any positive reinforcement (like they get attention that they like) will make the problem worse -- any attention they dislike will make it likely they won't repeat the performance.

For example, I used to have a housemate that had a cat (that was before I found out I am very allergic to cats). Said cat had a nasty habit of throwing up regularly when he didn't get what he wanted pronto. I was naive enough to think the cat was sick, so one day I'm at the supermarket and see a product for fur balls; it helpfully explained that it would make the problem go away and that cats *loved* the flavor and all you had to do was to put a dab of the product on top of their paws or, if that failed, on top of their nose. So I decided to try. The cat threw up and I went and put some of the paste on top of his paw, which *really* displeased him to no end, and he ended up shaking the paste away from his paw without eating any... "A-ha!", thought I, "that's why they say 'try the top of their noses'!, eh?" and the next few times the cat threw up, I helpfully put some paste on top of his nose. Which also displeased him to no end. But you know what? After three days or so, that cat stopped throwing up all over the house. The few times he threw up seemed to be because he genuinely got sick or had a nasty fur ball, and even then, he'd run into his litterbox to throw up. And that was just fine with us too. ;-)

Good luck!