red

The young’un cat is no longer bound by any standards of human decency.

Since my last public complaints about his misbehaviors, we have moved far beyond mere attacks on the food supplies of the sea serpent, and the flooding of my library.

Now he is using my body as a trampoline.

We are locked in a battle royale about when he gets to go outside. He thinks that 5 a.m. is a fine time. But he is Wrong. For there are, at that hour, potentially, bears and mountain lions still out there. In my Rules, he doesn’t get to emerge into the world until it is light. When such night creatures have faded back into their own good holes. His young life has been one of bliss: he just doesn’t understand that there may be Dangers. He knows only that he needs to get out there to start herding the turkeys, excavating the ivy, frolicking with squirrels.

In the summer, when light came not long after 5 a.m., there wasn’t much of a problem. He’d come and prod me with a paw, while making a sound like he had been starved for three weeks. I would mumble that he just had to wait a few minutes. Impatient, he would periodically prod some more, send up more wails, like something out of a Sally Struthers “Feed The Children” TV commercial. Until, seeing light poking into the world, I’d stumble to the door and let him out.

But now light is not coming soon after 5:00 a.m. It is waiting hours after. And the young’un cat is no longer content to poke me with a paw, coupled with the Sally Struthers wail. Now, when the prod and the Sally don’t achieve the desired effect, he bounds onto my body, landing like an anvil with fur. As I struggle to regain breath, he leaps onto the floor. He waits until I have just fallen asleep again, then begins racing back and forth across my pummeled form, ululating in Sally-speak. This goes on continuously. Until the world lets there be light.

I don’t know what’s going to happen come December, when light does not arrive until 9:00 a.m. Which means I will have to endure four hours of this outrage. I am fearful I will end confined in a jail, morgue, or asylum.

Generally, cats eventually mature, get over such exuberant excitement with the world. I’m not sure that is going to happen with this fellow. I think he may be an eternal teenager.

Help. Me.