Cat-atonic

There is a battle that rages in our house. It rages like a slightly vexed butterfly, beating its wings in a futile manner. I am so good at similes. You can tell I did really well in my English degree.

The battle is between TheBloke (TM) and me, and concerns the fluffy, ginger git that you might know as Monty Cat. TheBloke (TM), full of his love for man's fellow creature, is all for letting Monty Cat sleep with us every night. I, on the other hand, am not. Now, before you start labelling me some sort of hygiene or control freak, please let me assure you, I would like nothing better than to have a cuddly feline snuggled up to me all night long, purring gently. It sounds wonderful.

But Monty Cat is not really the snuggling sort. He'll snuggle for a few minutes, to lull you into a false sense of security,

and then, just as you're dozing off gently to sleep, he'll creep underneath our bed, and lie on his back, claws upwards, scratching the bejesus out of our mattress. For fun. And to make noise. A lot of noise. The aim of this game is that we wake up and play with him. Alternatively, he loves nothing more than a 4 a.m. game of, "Do you think my nose is wet enough?", whilst pushing his wet cat nose into my face. He is nothing if not manipulative.

And I am something of a light sleeper.

And so the battle rages. I say "sleep with the door shut", TheBloke (TM) says, "leave it open, poor kitty".

Sometimes I relent. If I do, it's usually on a weekend when I don't have to get up too early. Sometimes TheBloke (TM) waits until I'm asleep and opens the door for the naughty cat. If we don't open the door to him, Monty Cat stands outside mewing and scratching the carpet to make as much noise as possible. Stupid cat.

Last night, through a winning strategy of alternate threat-making and sulking, I won the battle to have the door shut. Our door doesn't easily shut completely because of the carpet, but we can push it closed enough to stop Monty Cat coming in.

Or so I thought.

After shutting the cat out last night, I slept well. Until at 2.35 a.m. I was suddenly wide awake. The reason for my sudden wakefulness was a ginger fluffy git had attached himself ("playfully" as TheBloke (TM) would have it) to my toe. With his teeth. The furry fiend had crept under the duvet and decided to nibble my toes as a mark of his affection.

"How did you get in?" I asked the naughty cat, and promptly took him outside and shut the door again.

The next morning TheBloke (TM) told me the cat had actually been in our room for hours - had spent an hour sleeping on the bed between us, had scratched the mattress as was his wont, and - apparently - has now learned how to push open a door. Apparently he had even played a couple of rounds of "Do you think my nose is wet enough?" with me and I hadn't noticed a thing.

Perhaps I'm not such a light sleeper as I thought.

Does anyone want to buy a naughty cat?