It’s been an exhausting day, and all you’ve been thinking about since you got home is curling up under the blankets and going to sleep.
And now the time has finally arrived. You slip under the covers, cuddle into your favorite sleeping position and drift off.
Your dream takes you to that Caribbean island that you’ve always escaped to when the world around you is just too much to handle. The sun’s rays warm your skin as you listen to the waves gently crash upon the beach.
The local cabana boy with his bronze skin offers to gently message the suntan lotion on your back and you feel all the tension in your body slowly slip away.
But suddenly, a soft noise comes from behind you that sounds as if he’s choking. You turn around to see him on his hands and knees; something has caught in his throat and he can’t seem to get it out. His back rises and falls in violent waves as an all-too familiar sound is emitted from his lips:
hork… hork…
You’re immediately torn away from your dream and open your eyes and listen to the sound from somewhere in the night: hork… hork… Lovely. The cat is coughing up a furball and you can’t see where she is. But you are tired, and roll over figuring that the mess can wait until morning.
But your bladder has become alerted to the fact that you are conscious and has decided that a trip to the bathroom is in order. You try to reason with your bladder that there is a landmine in the general vicinity and in order to navigate to the porcelain goddess, you’d have to turn on the light and that would really throw off your sleeping pattern. But it doesn’t care, because it wants to go NOW!
You carefully slide out of bed, silently praying that you don’t step on the gift your feline friend has left for you as you make your way to the light switch. You gaze around the room with your sleep filled eyes and see… nothing. Rather than do a thorough sweep of the house, you go about your business and slide back into bed, vowing to search for the offending mess in the morning.
But you forget about it when you rise for the day and life goes on as normal. Days later as you are vacuuming the living room, you discover a dark patch on the hardwood floor. Kneeling down to get a closer look, you suddenly remember the event of so many nights ago. What would have taken 2 minutes to clean up in it’s liquid state has now turned into cement and will require 10 minutes of scraping and scrubbing to remove.
Welcome to the wonderful world of cat ownership. Only you are the one that is owned, not the other way around.
