That Cat is Pushing It!

As a cat who needs comfort and solace she has certain privileges: mainly these are that she is allowed in the bedroom, where she has ‘her’ mat upon which is placed ‘her’ food bowl and ‘her’ water bowl.

She also has a specially purchased bed, which is on the bed next to mine. It’s actually a dog bed, but it is the only one I could find of the right size and with soft sides but without an embarrassingly tasteless design of things like a spacecraft, or the Eiffel Tower, dolphins, motor bikes or any other such unsuitable artwork for a cat of her refined tastes.

Her bed is on top of the other bed for the simple reason that she likes to lie on the other bed. As I don’t like the amount of hair that she leaves behind I put the bed under the cat, rather than try to prevent the cat getting onto the bed.

Her bed is perfectly adequate, but will, in the fullness of time, require washing. I have a feeling that, once washed, it will become shapeless and floppy, and will no longer serve the purpose for which it was bought.

Also, she likes to sit in it and knead imaginary dough to make imaginary bread, which is certain to lead to its disintegration – dogs don’t knead dough, so the fabric from which it is made will certainly not withstand the onslaught of a cat’s claws.

So in order to add to the bed’s longevity I bought a piece of fluffy fabric in white to use as a blanket to go inside the bed. She loved it, subjecting it to rigorous kneading on a regular basis. However, being white it very soon needed washing, so I bought another one, brown and with random bones integrated into its pattern.

She loved this one as well, so I removed the white one and put it in the washing machine. It came out lovely and fluffy and white, and in due course, when the brown one became wash-worthy I swopped it for the original white one. She spent the whole day sitting beside her bed with a look of disapproval such as only a cat can master. Come bed time I substituted the white one for the brown one, and she graciously condescended to enter her bed once more.

Next morning I returned the brown blanket to the wash pile and replaced it with the white one, upon which she resumed her pose of offended majesty next to her bed – In comparison to her Queen Victoria would have looked quite chummy!

However, come bed time I decided to call her bluff – I left the white blanket in, turned out the light and settled down. I should have known better – five times she woke me in the night demanding to sit on me, or at the very least to sit on my bed, while her own bed remained unslept in. I now have a Judgement of Solomon to make. Do I tough it out and tell her to make the best of it, or do I replace the offending white blanket for the brown one?

It’s a matter of who blinks first!