09.06.2002 - 3:28 p.m.

I wake up each morning, not so much because of my alarm, but because of my cat. She wakes up when my roommate starts moving around, at 6- or 7- something, pads into my room, attacks the shoelace at the top of her scratching post, then curls up next to my head and purrs.

Hazel�s purr is only slightly less impressive than the sound of the military planes that sometimes come in low over my apartment. She vibrates the entire mattress. This is her system of fair warning.

At eight, when my alarm goes off for the first time, my hand gets about halfway to the button before it runs into a furry wall. You see, she jumps up like I do, so she can get between me and the buttons and stop me from making the infernal noise go away. She will literally stand over the alarm clock, purring while it beeps.

She�s apparently a very smart cat: She�s not only made the mental connection between the noise and my waking up, but also between the button and my habit of ten more minutes.

She doesn�t approve of ten more minutes. This morning she chewed on my big toe. It was hanging over the edge, but still.

I find myself hiding in my pillow, thinking, I am the owner. I am the master. I will not be dragged out of bed by an eight-pound imitation outboard motor. This morning I reset the snooze four times, on the grounds that I was not getting up until she left me alone for the full ten minutes.

How do you explain to your boss that you are late because you were taking a moral stand against your cat?

-stonebridge

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