Cuddle time

A guest post by Dante

Right, I need you to put down that plate and that piece of toast and make your soft, warm, comfortable lap available for cuddle time. Here I come now, don’t resist, make room.

You should know by now that cuddle time takes precedence over food consumption, reading, texting, jigsaw puzzling and every other mundane and entirely postpone-able human pursuit. I don’t care that you want another cup of tea, you’ll just have to wait. Or that the phone is ringing, they’ll call back. In fact, you should likely change your recorded message to say ‘Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now because I am occupied with a priority task that is much more important than speaking to you. Leave a message and when the cat gives me permission, I will call you back.’

There, that’s it, good, good, under the chin…under the chin…yes, purrrrr, purrrrr.

Now this is what people were put on this earth for. It almost makes up for all the inanities I have to suffer living with you.

Like being expected to do my poo in a plastic bowl filled with grit that smells like the dryer vent. That stuff gets everywhere; between my toes and under my tail, and the whole process is just plain insulting.

Then there’s the fact that you dawdle with my breakfast; puddling around half asleep, going to the bathroom, filling the kettle, checking the houseplants for goodness’ sake! You take an age cleaning my bowl, opening the damn can and mushing it all up while I’m trying to make you aware, through my ceaseless verbalizations, that I am starving. If this was a restaurant, I wouldn’t even give you one star.

Let’s not even mention the times when I am settling in for a nice nap on whatever piece of furniture is catching the sun and you start the vacuum cleaner up, then proceed to suck up my favourite earplug, the one with the wax on it. They’re not easy to come by: I spent weeks scouring the workbench before I found that one.

On the odd occasion when you actually have time to play with me, and dangle a pink furry fish in front of my nose, I go wide-eyed to feign excitement and bat it around a few times to humour you, then it’s game on, and the claws come out. Then you get mad at me! What, you think cats play nice? Besides, it’s only a scratch, don’t be such a kitten.

But what has to be the worst is the rare (thankfully) times when you get all sappy and want to pick me up and give me hugs and kisses, after you’ve been eating fruit!

Well, it’s not perfect, but as I began life as a stray, I can definitely say that there are advantages to living with people but they do take a lot of looking after, and you’ll never get them to do everything you want them to do, but hey, they are only human after all.