I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day…
Right now it’s 4:19am and I’m wide awake and more than a little embarrassed to tell you why.
It all started with our damned cat – BrettFavre. You know how ridiculous it is to have a cat named BrettFavre? “Hi, this is the veterinary clinic; BrettFavre is due for his feline leukemia shot.” If Abby had been the boy I planned on… we wouldn’t be stuck in this pickle. All my pre-motherhood life I imagined having a Cal and a Brett; never, during that time, did I think the one named Brett would require deworming.
Anyway – that damned BrettFavre (the cat, not the man) is suuuuuch an utter asshole… He likes to go out in the middle of the night. Please don’t judge us for accommodating his wish. This cat will stand outside our door and cry until we stumble downstairs and open the door. If we don’t respond to the meowing – he scratches those needle-like claws down our door (you’re wincing right now, imagine being awakened from a deep sleep with this….). If, by chance, we haven’t closed our door completely – he bats it open, it swings closed, he bats it open, it swings closed, he bats it open, it swings…
We have no choice but to set that asshole free to roam the neighborhood. We’ve tried a squirt bottle by the door – he scurries, then comes back with a vengeance. We’ve tried closing him in our sunroom, he gets out; that son of a bitch somehow gets out… with no opposable thumb – it’s baffling – how the hell does he turn the doorknob??????
I try to be calm about it, and I promise you – I’ve never punted that cat (although the thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion) but I may have nudged him with my toe a few…. dozen…. times. Ok, stop it right now with your PETA bullshit – after you’ve spent 9 years dancing this dance – claws down your door at 2:15am, walk downstairs, open back door, have cat stand there deciding if he wants to go out or not (those 2° mornings are fun AF)… then you can judge me.
I’d guesstimate in those 9 years – this asshole has woken us at some point between 1:30a and 3:45a at least 1800 times. Now… when I say “us” – you know I obviously mean “me”, right? Of those 1800 middle-of-the-night excursions – Dan has taken care of the situation at least 3 times. When I die – I want to come back as a husband.
I love how he says, “Just wake me up… it’s not my fault I don’t hear it. Just wake me up and I’ll take care of it.”
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-huh
Getting up and letting the little dickhead out is way less involved than trying to wake up the big dickhead next to me. Who sleeps like that??? You’d think the 2 hours he napped on the couch before bed would make him a little more easily roused… not so much. I usually end up more pissed off when I try to wake him… It starts with, “babe……. babe……” a gentle rubbing of the back, arm, leg – whatever I can reach easily (buncha weirdo pervs – yes, even THAT once or twice) and 3 minutes later ends with “DAN!” and a kick to the shin – then he yells, then I yell…
I will say this… if, against all odds, Dan does hear that asshole – he jumps into action. Well… there’s no jumping as he has to stretch his bitched up plantar fascia first (all the while the scratching, meowing, door batting continues); but then he’s swiftly and quietly on the move. Well… it’s not always quiet because of how he runs into the end of the bed most times and swears, but then he’s on his way to handle the problem so that I can go back to sleep. Well… I don’t go right back to sleep because he always forgets that – since he DW40’d the door hinges – the door slams if you don’t slow it down once it’s been opened but he does handle it quickly and efficiently so I can fall back to sleep undisturbed. Well… he doesn’t usually make quick work of it – there’s the bathroom break (“I figure I’m up… why not”) and he stops for a drink, checks his phone… all while I lie there listening for the scuffle I just know is coming – I mean, what else could be taking so damned long, obviously he foiled a burglar… but at least, once he does come back, he slides right back into bed unnoticed. Well… there is the sighing and dropping onto the bed, oh! and that cute way he throws the covers back so that my warm, snuggled-up cocoon gets some of that refreshing frosty air and it does only take a minute or 2 for him to beat the hell out of his pillow and then throw his head at it a few times to get it worked over just right… But hey – I didn’t have to ruin my slumber, right?
This morning was a Dan morning and I have to admit – I have zero complaints regarding his handling of the matter. He was on it immediately and took care of it as well, if not better than I do. Kudos my love… kudos. He did make some kinda comment about water as he was getting back in bed but surely it wasn’t anything important…
And here – finally – is why, on the one morning Dan took perfect care of the BrettFavre (the cat, not the man) situation and did so to my standards, I still find myself up and writing at 4:19…
I can’t even explain why… or how… or why… but… while Dan was downstairs I had an image pop into my head. Outta nowhere, for no reason whatsoever I had the most clear image of a dog driving to work (necktie and all) with his coffee and foil-wrapped sandwich still on the roof – like he took off and forgot it was up there…
I told you it was embarrassing.
I just sorta laid there for a while after Dan got back in bed – wondering what in the hell would drive me to visualize this situation; then Dan struck up a conversation (he could tell I hadn’t fallen back to sleep). All the sudden I started giggling. I tried desperately to describe the image I had (it was no easy task – there were different points when I literally couldn’t breath, I mean… scared ’cause I couldn’t catch my breath); damn if Dan wasn’t right on board with it… “Sorta like a cartoonish image but not a full cartoon.”
He soooooo gets me.
I couldn’t get myself straight. Dan was laughing at my asinine laughter. I finally just said, “I’m gonna go ahead and leave the area so you can get some sleep,” and then I came downstairs… and googled ‘dog driving to work with coffee on roof’ – I came up blank and I gotta say… I really am surprised, I mean that damned image is SO CLEAR to me…
beagle-type dog, leaning forward – anxious to get to his [clearly] stressful job, long rounded ears, black necktie; with both ear and necktie flying out the window (because obviously, he would have the window down)…
When this image popped into my head I saw the dog in the driver’s seat first and then my “vision” sorta scanned up and that’s when I “saw” the coffee and sandwich on the roof…
I’ve been known to get so incredibly irritated with Dan when he laughs about stupid shit and I look him square in the eye and say, “…must be nice to be that fucking simple…”
well… I gotta tell ya, even though I know I’m gonna be exhausted later – it is, actually kinda nice, to be this fucking simple…
Love it!