Shmogg's sleeping location on my bed had been found through years of trial
and error, and now its a ritual every night. After yelling for food for
about an hour, he gets fed at 10:30pm every night (regardless of how much
begging, cajoling, wining, whimpering, doing the cute, doing the pathetic
and doing the starving has occurred). Whilst he's chowing down, I brush my
teeth and get ready for bed. By the time I'm just settling down, he's
finished his dinner and is ready to hop up on the bed to purr me to sleep (I
cannot go to sleep without purr now). Without fail, he settles on the side
of the bed near the door, right up and my head level.

This sleeping position has many advantges. First and foremost, its the
safest. He is unlikely to be hit during the night by one of my flailing
limbs when I thrash about in my sleep (although not totally immune, which is
when I get a solid limb-repellant bite for my trouble). Secondly, it allows
him to get on and off he bed easily so as to go to the litter tray or top up
on kibble during the night, as the spot right next to my night stand which
he used as a step. Despite the fact I place my alarm clock there every
night, by morning its on the floor. I am so used to him knocking it off, I
no longer awake to the sound of it hitting the floor.

Access to scritches is of course a natural advantage, and the fact the
stoopid hoomin has to contort her arms into weird and blood-draining
positions to supply said scritches is an added advantage.

But perhaps, best of all, the location is such that the stoopid hoomin's
sinuses are forever filled with a plentiful and never ending supply of cat
dander. Shmogg obviously interprets the resulting chain-saw like snores as
the hoomin version of a contented purr. If only Joel did too.

He's been sleeping there for many years now, and we have both gotten used to
it. Nothing better after having a totally aweful day than to fall into bed
and have your oldest friend soothe you to sleep.

It was one of those aweful days. They're not that common, thankfully, but
every so often, events that I could easily handle if they'd happened in
isolation gang up on me to make my day miserable. We'd found out that
despite my group a work buting our guts to score 150% on our bonus rating,
we were not going to get paid a bonus this year. Joel and Cary were in
equally foul moods and torturing each other (they're twins born 30 years
apart, I swear). All the bills had arrived on the same day, and just to top
it all off, the monthly joys of being female had struck, leaving me with
unsually bad cramps and a craving for chocolate, which of course, we were
out of.

I was *very* grateful to fall into bed, and my oldest and fuzzies friend
faithly appeared on the bed a moment later. Relieved that even though it had
been a crabby day, some things never changed, I reached up over my head to
give my beastie a good scritching, something that would rev up the purr
machine enough for me to fall asleep to is sonorific sound.

Perhaps Shmogg could detect the water bottle I had clutched against my
cramping belly, or maybe he just knew I was in pain, but instead of settling
in his usual spot by my head, he waited till the scritchings were finished,
and settled himself insead in the nook made between my tummy and my curled
up legs. And purr, boy did he ever. If only I could bottle those purrs and
take them at work for cramps, because hey worked better than Ponstan or
Naprogesic has ever done.

Grateful to my dear dear Shmogg for always being there for me no matter
what, I almost instanenously forgot my troubles, and drifted off into a
pleasant and stress free sleep.

As the result of being a mother, some things I used to take for granted are
no longer. Like my bladder. I miss being ble to sleep through the night
without needing the bathroom before the morning. It is a sad fact of life
shared with many other mothers, and something i've just had to get used to
('just do your excercises' has resulted in a muscle that could probably bend
steel but still can't hold pee well).

Me getting up for a potty break in the middle of the night is something
Shmogg has gotten used to. He doesn't even stir most nights, and even if he
does, its only to open one eye just to make sure everythig is all right with
the world. Which wouldn't be a problem if he as sleeping where he sually
sleeps, by my head, but tonight he as sleeping on top of the doona, in the
nook between my tummy and my bended legs.

He had, in effect, trapped me. I tried to move, but was being held down by a
6 kilo cat. Well, he's 6 kilos when he's *awake*, he adds several tonnes
whilst he's asleep. So I am trapped under my doona with a sleeping cat at my
stoamch and a a load of pee that is about to liberate itself from the
opression of the bladder, whether I'm over the toilet or not.

Hmmm.

Nothing for it, I have to wake Shmogg up.

I jiggle abit, bumping against him.

Nothing.

I call out "Puss, Puss" in a way that implies more food is in the offing.

Not even an ear swivel.

I poke him.

Dead as a doornail.

Things in the nether region are getting *desperate*.

I try to reach down and physically relocate him, but the angle is such that
I have no leverage.He's going no where, and apparntly, nor am I.

Well, is either get out of bed or sleep in a man - or should that be woman -
made puddle, so I wiggle and squirm and slide and jiggle and eventually
manage to extract myself from the cunning cat & doona trap much like a
butterfly eventually squeezes itself out of the cocoon.

Thankfully, I make I to the bathroom, before the pee steals a coup.

And now I have to get back *into* bed.

Butterflies don't tend to go back *into* cocoons. I have a problem, Houston.

I consider my options. Wiggle and shuffle back like a demented maggot
attemtping to reclaim its childhood into the the dooona trap or move the
cat. The sleeping cat. The slightly snuffly snoring kitty. The contented
beastie that has turned himself into an upside downy head pinwheel. The
wonderful, adorable, compassionate and loyal Shmoggleberry that had done
with simple purrs that all of modern pharmacology has not - my cramps had
gone.

Looking at my dear sweet Shmogg, sleeping blissfully in the folds of my
doona, I knew I had no choice.

With much effort and contortions Houdini would have been proud of, I finally
get back into more or less the same position I was before. I sigh softly,
chiding myself with "catslave" at the things I put myself through for the
sake of his comfort and try to get back to sleep.

But at the sound of the sigh, which I *swear* was so soft that it was relly
more of a mental sigh than an audible one, Shmogg woke up. Shmogg stretched
in the incredibly elastic way cats do when they've have a good long
satisfying sleep, and then trotted up to his usual spot besides my head.

Now, I realise that - since the hot water bottle had long since gone cold
and my cramps had disspiated - that perhaps he no longer felt it necessary
to stay there, and decided that he'd prefer the usual spot, but why oh why
coudln'the have woken up five minues before? Why did I have to put myself
through amazing and brutal contortions *with a full bladder* because he
woudn't wake up to poking, prodding, jiggling and yelling, ut could wake up
not to all the movement in he bed but a barely audible sigh?

Why?

Despite Shmogg having not tranversed the night stand, the angle of the light
coming from my alarm clock on the floor was just enough for me to see just a
hint of a smirk as he settled himself up by my head.

Why?

Because, despite his age, he's *still* the b*st*rd c*t, thats why.

And I still scritched his chin till the blood drained out of my twisted arm,
just like the good catslave I am.

Yowie