Kitty Psycho-Drama

It's a gray, gloomy day in Happy Valley and I'm behind on the new catalog, so let's have a pick-me-up. A few years ago, a while after we got our two cats, they began to start trying to get us up earlier and earlier each morning for breakfast. First we closed the bedroom door. That didn't work. They'd gather outside the door at about 4 a.m. and begin leaping at the knob, bumping the door, rattling the knob, then thudding to the floor.

bump, rattle, thump...
(silence)
bump, rattle, thump...
(silence)
bump, - you get the idea. We gave that up pretty fast.

Then we bought one of those timed feeders. It's a simple idea. You load the food the night before, set the timer, and it clicks around until it hits "open" and a little flange flips and the lids pop up. What could possibly go wrong with that?

What indeed. The folks who designed that contraption had never met our cats.

To begin with, one of the cats (ok, it was Pywackett) started sitting -on top- of the lids, trying to pry the lid off with her paw. It was hard plastic, and she was sitting on it, weighing it down, so all she could do was lift a corner and then let go, and it would snap back into place with a whack.

So we started hearing this at about 2 a.m.-

whack!
(silence)
whack!
(silence)
whack! whack!

We didn't actually have to decide what to do about the timed feeder, because the second night Pie got down to business and this is what I walked in to the next morning-



I'm not sure how the paper towels got involved...

Oh, the problem with them getting us up earlier and earlier to be fed? It went away immediately when we discovered an interesting psychological fact about cats- if you don't feed them the minute you get up, they won't get you up when they want to be fed.

Who knew?