So last night, at about 3:45 am, your host was sound asleep. He was lying there with one piglet in the crate behaving herself, another in bed spooning him, and out of nowhere, a cat from hell jumped on his head, woke him up, knocked his glasses off the night stand, and then went on his merry way. Rather than let this behavior go unchecked, your host took things into his own hand. So, for the past 24 hours, every time he walked by a sleeping Tunch, he fucked with said cat.
By his count, he has woken Tunch up at least 18 times today. Here is the aftermath of the latest assault on this cat’s sleep:
I may bleed from this in the short term, but I am going to win this war, god damnit.
Spaghetti Lee
Well I’m glad you’re being mature about it all.
YellowJournalism
You’ll be sleeping in Rosie’s crate by Wednesday.
MattR
Been nice knowing you.
David Koch
War on puzzy.
Jade Jordan
John you are slipping. The fake uber religious Rick Santorum donated 1.8% of his income. Not the 10% tithe required by the church.
Leave Tunch alone and start hammering him.
Yutsano
Death by a thousand cuts just got a whole new meaning…
cmorenc
If you really want to screw with Tunch, open a can of Tuna and leave it out somewhere he can’t reach, jump, or climb to (Rosie either) but where he can see it and smell it.
Comrade Mary
I don’t see a single sharp edge on that vision of plush loveliness. You’ll be fine.
Suffern ACE
Who inherits this place when you’re gone. Do the front pagers get to divide the whole thing. I hope you’ve designed your will so that Tunch Can be your heir, executor and executioner all at the same time.
kdaug
@cmorenc: Agreed. Top of the refrigerator should work. Put a fan up there too, to blow that sweet, sweet tuna smell.
House will probably stink for a day or two, but sacrifices must be made.
AUSTERITY!
Suffern ACE
@Jade Jordan – the tithe is in the bible, but if I recall correctly, there is a sermon or two about it each year, and the offering envelop contains $10 each week, $20 after payday. I don’t think many would care, unless he donated money to the ground zero mosque or local Wiccan relief fund.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
John, I’m sure Tunch would be learning his lesson if he had the slightest clue why you keep waking him. But he has no idea. He can’t remember what he did at 3:45am come 4:00 am, much less a day later.
Plus, cats sleep like 70% or 80% of the time, so he can fall right back into kitty dreamland quicker than you.
Let him win that one. It’s better for the twos of ya.
John - A Motley Moose
This will not end well.
numfar
My money’s on the cat.
Spaghetti Lee
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
You got that one right. To explain why my cats start meowing an hour after they’re fed, and whenever a different human walks into the room, I’ve defined their sense of time as “If it isn’t happening right now, it didn’t happen.”
Yutsano
I’mma gonna tell wifey on you! She’ll spank you! You might even like it!
dead existentialist
Ya got the wrong piglet in the crate, Johnny-boy.
Mary G
Instant Karma’s gonna get ya.
pseudonymous in nc
I too am taking the under on this one; I have chosen the path of appeasement, because vindictive cats are not fun.
Obligatory Party Cat reference.
Politically Lost
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
I had a cat that would crap in the shoe of anyone he thought had wronged him. Don’t tell me they don’t hold a grudge and can’t discern who they will take their revenge upon.
Tehanu
All cats, everywhere: “mrowwww mrowww mrowww”. Or in English, ha ha, dream on, fool!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I can’t put it any better than this.
blehmann
Every night the dog wakes me up at 4 a.m. to go outside. He has to go out of his way and bypass two other people (who are frequently awake and playing games at 4 a.m.) in order to get me to let him out.When he comes back in, I get to to lift his furry butt into one of the beds.
I think he loves me best.
dead existentialist
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Your link led me to this Woody Guthrie rendition of “All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose.”
Thanks. That was pretty refreshing.
ETA: Cole oughta appreciate the hillbilly reference, also too.
TBogg
Wembley wakes me up at 4AM EVERY MORNING to take him out to pee. Every. Morning. 4AM. I could set my clock to it.
nota bene
@ #12
Exactly. Cats just don’t make the connection. You have to punish them either in the act or immediately after, otherwise they just think you’re mean.
What I would do, next time he jumps on you while sleeping, is get up and turn the lights on and raise holy hell. Doesn’t even matter if you actually do anything. Just stomp your feet and start yelling at the top of your head. Even pretend to chase after whereever he runs to, a little bit (mostly just to make additional noise). He’ll put 2 and 2 together.
One of my cats did almost this exact thing to me while I was sleeping….leapt off a shelf, 4.5′ up and at least 6′ away, and got me right in the forehead. I like to think the resulting shitstorm persuaded him that it was in his best interest to stick his landings on unoccupied parts of the mattress from then on.
Soylenth
Do you have sleep apnea? He might be jumping on you when you stop breathing during an apneatic episode.
asiangrrlMN
COLE! You stop being mean to poor Tunchie!
Awwww, Tunchie, you can come live with ME!
::snatches up Tunch and glares at Cole::
amk
You heartless bastid. Leave the poor thing alone.
harlana
TUNCH.NOT.IMPRESSED
harlana
he won’t let you close the bedroom door, will he?
Xenos
On the related subject of sleep health – has anyone tried the Jawbone Up? It is a wristband with an iphone app that helps to track sleep and exercise patterns. I think I need something like that, and it may help our distinguished blog host.
Southern Beale
Yeah, you can’t really fuck with a cat. They get their revenge, someway, somehow.
But if I had a cat who woke me up at 3:45 a.m. every morning that cat would be sleeping outside on a very cold night.
Emma
Our cat sleeps in my bed, but since he doesn’t get along with the pup (the poor kitty was a rescue, some bastard declawed him then threw him out to fend for himself in a neighborhood full of dogs) , the door must be kept locked until the pup is in his crate for the night. Woe if I forget to open that door. In the middle of the night he will jump on the bench where I keep my reading materials, plus pad and paper and water bottle, etc., and things will go flying. In every freaking direction. And a screetching sound is made, very low, that will raise the hackles on someone dead ninety days.
They know how to get you, John.
JPL
@harlana: Maybe John lives in a house without doors.
BGK
Wow. As my cats are nothing but sleep aids (especially Ava with her pillow-side purr-monstery) I must give them extra head scratching and Greenies. When I first got Jack, though, he was a night terror. Woke me up at obscene hours with Siamese howling. The absolute best remedy was to totally ignore him. PLlay dead, let him romp and yodel all he wanted. This stopped reinforcing his negative behavior, so he learner that there was no point in yodeling, so he might as well sleep. I reinforced this by giving him 15 or 20 minutes of play time when I got up. For nine years now, he takes his spot at lights out at the foot of the bed and sleeps as long as me.
DanielX
@Politically Lost:
Could be worse; a friend of mine has two cats who decided that whenever he had an overnight guest of whom they disapproved the thing to do was pee on the bed. While my friend and said guest were in it asleep. It happened more than once, so I’m told, with the predictable result of female shrieks and male roars of rage. Other guests, no problem, they’d take their usual spots at the foot of the bed and snooze away. Didn’t quite result in any dead cats, but it was close.
john
You’re gonna lose this. The last thing you want to do is turn it into a game.
Watch My Cat from Hell.
swearyanthony
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Actually, I think this video is a better summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8RCQDDsMpU&feature=related
Maude
Tunch Won, John, zero
tjmn
I had a male cat who was named at 0300. I didn’t want to scar him for life, so I named him PC. Problem Child
El Cid
You’re just sleeping at the wrong times. Try to learn your cat’s sleeping schedules, and adjust yourself appropriately to match.
Fwiffo
John, you’re talking about yourself in the third person. This is never good.
deep
#1 comment is the best. Shut down the thread.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
you never want to get into a sleep-deprivation show down with anything or anyone that buys sardines by the barrel.
Paul in KY
@nota bene: Good advice. If they do ‘A’ and you immediately go nuts, they ought to figure out not to do ‘A’ anymore.
Very important that it has to be done right when ‘A’ happened.
J R in WVa
We’ve had cats (plural, up to 9 once after a litter was born) since 1972, and I’m here to tell you that this isn’t how to win a fight with a cat.
Tunch doesn’t know or care what he did last night, nor that it upset you. Either close the bedroom door (he might not let you, scritch scritch, all night long), or put him outside when he wakes you up, as if that was what he wants.
But you still lose, really, no matter what. It’s a cat thing.
Culture of Truth
No you won’t, because cats are not dogs, or people. He will not process this as “ok, better not bug the boss,” you will at best have an even more pissed off cat.
Cathie from Canada
This sort of reminds me of Basil beating his car with a tree branch.
ET
Um John – you are not winning the war. Sorry to disillusion you. Cats only get trained when it benefits them (food and treats) otherwise they don’t care.
Bill H.
No, you are not. No human being has ever won a war with a cat. You have now become completely unhinged.
Ken
@TBogg: I’m up at that hour doing the same thing. Maybe I should get a pet.
Ken
At least that explains the photo; I thought you were introducing a guest blogger.
Mnemosyne
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
@Spaghetti Lee:
I dunno — if something makes enough of an impression on a cat, they remember something that happened 5 years ago like it just happened an hour ago. At one point, a naive vet gave me some flea mousse to put on the late great Boris, and until the end of his life (at least 11 years later) he was convinced that every aerosol can was full of flea mousse.
But then there was also the time that he and Natasha had been boarded for a week while we were in Chicago. We brought them home and he fell asleep on the bed. He woke up with a start after about 20 minutes and looked around, and I swear you could see him thinking, “I’m not stuck in a cage with Natasha at all! I’m at home! It was all just a bad dream.” And then he fell asleep purring.
koalaholik
@Politically Lost: My mother yelled at one of our cats one time and he went in and pooped on her bed in retaliation. AND, he made sure he pooped on HER side of the bed. Do NOT piss off the cat.
maya
How can you go to war against Ceiling Cat and possibly hope to win? Get thee behind Me, Lucifer.
Rawk Chawk
Close your bedroom door to keep him out or quit yer bitchin.
Andree-Anne Desmedt
You ain’t going to win this one, John, or any other battle for that matter. Tunch will do exactly what he wants and when he wants it. And since you love him, you’ll let him.
Tunch:1 (forever); John:0 (forever).
Mjaum
Ten crowns (kroner, if you’d rather) on the cat. Safest investment evah.
amk
Let’s see. He is semi-catnapping comfortably in the sofa while you were up 18 times today to ‘bother’ him.
No-brainer to know who is the winner here.
harlana
just revel his gloriousness and be thankful this is all he wants to do to you (for now, anyways), John, as exhibited in this pic – it is a privilege, i tell you, to be harassed at 3:00 am by such a magnificent feline. LEARN YOUR PLACE & LEARN TO LOVE IT, Monkeyboy!
Quaker in a Basement
Sweet Jeebus, John, you’ve become a real-life, walking, talking Garfield strip.
harlana
@Rawk Chawk: speaking from experience, that’s a lot harder than it sounds
Hawkeye
Tubby: I can haz last laugh.
MosesZD
No, you’re not. You’ll have to sleep sometime…
Andree-Anne Desmedt
Gee John! Judging from the picture, it looks like all Tunch has to do to win the next battle is to throw up a nice, gooey,hairball on your keyboard.
Beware of waking up His Royal Sleepness!
Andree-Anne Desmedt
Gee John! Judging from the picture, it looks like all Tunch has to do to win the next battle is to throw up a nice, gooey,hairball on your keyboard.
Beware of waking up His Royal Sleepness!
Mnemosyne
@harlana:
You must also have a cat who will POUND on the door for hours if you don’t let him in.
Seriously. Hours. If we try to lock Keaton out, he will. not. give. up. At one point, we ended up having to put him in a crate just to get some sleep, but eventually he wore us down and now they all get to sleep in the bedroom.
Early this morning, I tried to roll over, and Charlotte grabbed onto my feet so I couldn’t move. Damn cats.
Keiksmazodziai
he won’t let you close the bedroom door, will he?
SamR
Tunch is unamused.