Isis' Weekend, or The Cat Awakening

Isis, my cat, does not understand about weekends. She thinks a Saturday or a Sunday is like any other day of the week.

On weekdays, we rise and have a companionable romp with a shoelace, or a battle around the scratching post with a peacock feather. I always set aside 15-20 minutes of my morning to play with her.

But on the weekend, I don't want to get up at 5:30 am. So after just so much of the Siamese Whisker Torture, a dragging of long tickling whiskers on my cheek, nose or any other exposed skin, I get up, feed and water Isis and go back to bed to sleep, I wish, another two and a half or three hours.

However, this plan has not taken Isis into consideration. She wants to play like any other day of the week.

Her first strategy to get me up and at it, is to entice me by example. I hear her batting around a ball or paper, of which she usually has no less than half a dozen, it being her favorite toy.

If this act does not work, the next is sure to get my attention. She starts up her engine in the living room. She revs her motor as she tears at her kitty tree. Then she literally ZOOMS around the house. Her favorite race course includes me as part of the straight away. Occasionally, I even become a pit stop with a authoritative Yow! for me to speed up in my part as crew chief.

If the first two devices still leave me with my head firmly shoved under my pillow and my body still wrapped tightly in covers, the last tactic is sure to get results. It's called the Guilt Trip.

She starts by bringing her catnip mouse to bed. She lays it as an offering to me on my pillow with a plaintive Yow? This first maneuver is never enough to motivate me into rising. I only dig in further. The next object she delivers is her shoulder pad. It used to be my shoulder pad, now Isis used it as a comfort toy, like a dog uses an old shoe or 'Linus' his blanket. Next is one of those wadded pieces of paper, or her plastic center out of the scotch tape roll. And so it goes on, each thing brought, each presented with a begging yow as though to say, "look, don't you feel guilty lying there when I have no one to play with?"

After a while the pile of toys has grown so that I envision myself as a headline in one of those tabloid newspapers in the supermarket checkout line; Woman Suffocates in Bed! - Buried by CAT TOYS!

So finally with a sigh, I relent, uncover, get up and play!