It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

On Friday around 6:00pm I got a phone call from a Maryland number. I didn’t answer, assuming it was probably a wrong number, but I looked down later to realize I had a voice mail. I listened and it was a mattress store (I won’t name them here) calling to say that they would be delivering my mattress the next morning between 7:00 and 10:00am. This was all well and good except, of course, that I hadn’t ordered a mattress and I doubted a Maryland store even delivered to Indiana. I just ignored it, figuring the actual mattress’s recipients would be surprised the next morning, but not giving it much thought.

Until 7:10 the next morning. When my phone rang. I was so disoriented and asleep I thought it was my alarm and spent the whole ring cycle trying to turn it off.

No worries. It rang again five minutes later. It was the mattress store saying they were en route with my mattress. I told them they had the wrong number. They didn’t seem to believe me. I told them I was in Indiana and hung up.

They called back again! This time I answered and without waiting for them to greet me said, “This is the same number you’ve been calling. I’m still in Indiana.” And I hung up.

They called back again! This time I glared at the phone, but didn’t answer. Seriously? Seriously? If the number was wrong the first four times, it’s not magically going to become the right number.

Keep in mind it was Saturday. I don’t generally sleep that late on Saturday thanks to the orange monster that is usually climbing on my face demanding his breakfast and my bizarre need to beat everyone else to the grocery store on student discount day. But I do like to splurge a little on sleep. Sleep till… you know… 8:00?

But no. Because of someone else’s mattress, I was denied that splurge. And for that, the mattress store that shall remain nameless goes on my list. And possibly to the first circle of Hell.

I have nothing I want to write about tonight.  Not a thing.  It was a pretty long day at the bill-paying job today and I mostly want my acetaminophen-pm and my pillow.  But, since it’s my turn to post (and I’m all kind of resolved to be better about that this year)….here are things that I considered and discarded:

1) The Job.  One day, when I have other means of income, I will write a fabulous tell all about my way not glamorous job.  It will be a fantastic mix of tragedy and comedy.  I will be hailed a genius and the world will be changed.  Until then, I like paying the bills.

2) Politics.  Not touching that with a 10-foot f-ing pole.  To quote Josh from The West Wing, “I’m so sick of Congress I could vomit.”  If I hear about one more damn Republican Primary….

3) The Idiot Who Nearly Ran Me Into a Ditch This Morning.  He made my day start out sucky and since he didn’t actually manage to run me off the road and to an early grave, you’re stuck reading this sub-standard post.

4) The Weather. I’m not talking about it because ours has been fantastic and I don’t wanna jinx it by saying more than that (having written this much, we’ll get 6 inches of snow and -15 temps tomorrow)

5) The Cat.  She’s being bitchy and a little attention whore and paying attention to her will only make it worse.

And on that note, my little painkillers-o-wonder are standing by to cure the pounding in my head and whisk me off to the land of Nod on 25mg of Diphenhydramine.

A recent bout of stress has been taking its toll on my sleep patterns.  I’m not a chronic insomniac, but when work/school hit certain stress peaks, like a lot of people, it impacts my zzzzzzs.

For some people, the result is not being able to fall asleep.  For me, it’s not being able to stay that way.  And what sleep I do get, is highly disturbed.

The cycle goes something like this:  first come the weird dreams.  More vivid and memorable than normal.  I may sleep all night, but I don’t feel refreshed afterward–like all that dreaming saps something.  Then come the dreams, apparently accompanied by, well, me.  Kristy has witnessed this one back when we were room mates in college.  Apparently I was rather angry in my demands that she answer the phone (which wasn’t ringing), emphatic that “You can’t call a witch ‘Bob’” and horrified as I declared, “I woke up, and the psychic friends network was GONE!” Passing this point, we get to the part where I actually wake myself up.  I had a great episode during law school finals where I woke up in total terror after a dream where I got to my Torts exam and was expected to write it in French.  I launched myself out of bed, got dressed and walked all the way down to the law quad before I realized that….I didn’t even have an exam that day.  And if I did?  Probably wouldn’t be starting it at 5am.  And once I’m into waking myself up, that’s when I can’t get back to sleep.  Or if I do, it’s in short bouts, that cycle back through the weirdness and shocking wake up.

And here I am.

Again.

The things-in-a-foreign-language theme is apparently popular this season in Brain of Cammy, because I’ve had a few episodes with that one (I seem to be harboring a real fear of French).  Oh, and snakes.  I hate snakes.  A lot.  So that’s just a recipe for waking up yelling.  And there was a whole series involving a rather elaborate crossover between Downton Abbey and North & South (and a few others–it was like the BBC exploded in my head) only sometimes it was the characters and sometimes their actors.

I’m experimenting with solutions.  Sleeping pills are mildly effective.  I still wake myself up, but I seem to get back to a fitful sleep a little faster. Herbal tea, aromatherapy….they all seem to be fine for relaxing me to sleep in the first place, but they are no help on the interruption front.  I actually even gave drinking a shot on Saturday night (two g&ts and a shot of rum)–no aid to sleep, but I did send out some incoherent e-mail and laugh harder than normal at Glee.

The upside is, I know this will end when things taper off in real life.  The downside, is, in the meantime, I’m getting run down and sick (ran low grade fever Saturday morning).

There is no real point to this post, other than the fact that I feel the need to confess that human-cat relations in my household have shifted the balance of power to the cat.

This shouldn’t really be surprising to any of you who’ve dealt with cats. I’m not even all that surprised myself.

My cat now sets my sleep schedule. The waking up aspect of this is the part that doesn’t come as a shock. The cat is very prompt about getting me up in the morning. Food is, after all, necessary. Except it’s not really food she’s demanind, but kitty-treats, which I, sad human that I am, give up readily, mostly to shut up her whining. By the time this is accomplished, I’m mostly awake and generally begin my own morning rituals to go to work. Monday through Friday this is all good. The cat is basically a back-up to my alarm clock.

Saturday and Sunday however, it’s not good. It sucks. And yet…it’s working in the cat’s favor. I’ve tried ignoring her, shutting her out of my bedroom–all manner of things. Today I even resorted to putting her in the laundry room (aka “Kitty Jail”….it has her litter box, food and water, and lots of soft clothes to curl up on….but she still gets pissed. Even this didn’t work this morning. I could hear the yowling as I tried to go back to sleep.

But this is all normal cat-ness. What’s new is that the cat has also set my bed-time. Only I barely realized it. Over the course of this week, I’ve started to realize how my cat actually kind of herds me toward the bedroom around 10pm. It’s actually quite subtle. First she walks back and forth between where I am and the bedroom. Then she starts to make a little noise, get my attention, look toward the bedroom. Then she throws a real hissy and makes for the food, where, I stupidly get up and follow her. She quickly doubles back and I wind up following her the other way, questioning the ruckus she’s raising if she wasn’t hungry….and before I know it, she’s hopped up on the bed. I look at her there and suddenly realize it’s getting late, I’m a bit sleepy….

And voila. The cat has just subtly coaxed me into my nightly routine, and after brushing my teeth, I’m crawling in bed and she has her human to snuggle with.

It took me this long to realize what she was doing, now I’m questioning all my actions. How much of a puppetmaster is my cat? What else is she subtly controlling me on that I haven’t realized yet? Am I just a part of a greater doomsday plot that my cat is orchestrating?????