Cats are the devil, mama!

Kittens are notorious bullshit artists.  When people think of kittens, usually (unless they're serial killers) the first thing that pops into their heads are images of precious little four legged puffs of fur that exist soley to make humans act like idiots over their cuteness and dangle string in front of their faces.

Well, they're WRONG.  Kittens use their cuteness as a distraction from their real agenda: to slowly fray the ends of sanity of every cat owner on the planet.

Knocked over grandma's clock? Oh...but how can you stay mad?? She's so cute!!

Hacked up a furball in your slipper?  Cute.

Shredded the bottom half of your brand new living room furniture? Dammit, still cute.

They have the ability to make us more pissed off than a badger in a fun house hall of mirrors, yet we are incapable (in most cases) of causing bodily harm to the furry little bastards.

Why, you might ask, do I have this outrageous opinion that kittens are pure evil wrapped in snuggly fur?

Flash back to 1991.  My best friend's cat had kittens...cute little calico wads of meowing fuzz.  I remember the one she kept was named Mischief. The one I acquired was named Patches. In a few moments you will realize the misnomer.

Patches was Satan in feline form.  A day didn't go by where Patches wasn't causing my mom or my step dad to scream and curse the kitten's existence.  I, on the other hand, was way too young to have to deal with such nonsense as "pet responsibility," so I was far from realizing the terror this cat truly was - at first.

Here is a *short* list of the horrors we experienced at the hands of Patches, a 6 month old kitten.

-Patches would utilize god-like strength and dexterity to jump to the highest point in a door frame, latch claws, and slowly slide down the wood.  One time he was startled in mid maneuver, and actually managed to get stuck *to* the top of the door frame.

-Patches took great joy in making me afraid of the edge of the bed.  To this very day, I am uncomfortable with letting limbs dangle over the side of the mattress.

-Patches once fell into a bucket of white paint, and after climbing out, ran all over the fully carpeted two story apartment.

-Patches nearly destroyed a wedding cake worth several hundred dollars. Mom used to make them as part of her job as wedding planner.  Well, this cake ended up having an oddly placed plastic cherub to hide the huge bite mark the cat left behind after he literally dove into the cake. Mom swears to this day Patches smiled at her before making his escape.

-Patches smashed my mom's favorite anniversary clock.  It was no light thing and it was well towards the inside of the shelf.  It was clearly intentional.

-Grandma once spent a few days at our place watching Patches while we were gone on vacation.  We came back to find grandma sitting by the door with her coat on and her bags packed.  She warned us that she would never babysit "that demon cat" again.  We still don't know what Patches did to her.

-This one isn't necessarily evil, but worth mentioning.  My step dad was laying down for a nap. Patches sat on his chest. Every time my step dad opened his mouth on the inhale of his log sawing snore, Patches quickly stuffed his paw down the cavernous maw, presumably trying to reach that dangly thing in the back.  You'd be surprised how long it took before the step dad woke up.

-This is the smoking gun, irrefutable proof of why Patches was Satan in furry disguise.  The evil cat was cooked in the broiler of an oven and SURVIVED.

This deserves telling in more detail.  The step dad was making hamburgers in the broiler.  He momentarily left the broiler open and turned away.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, Patches crawled into the back of the broiler where he began to nom on raw hamburger meat.  Step dad turned back and closed the broiler door.

Moments later, my mom began flipping out because the oven was making strange banging noises.  We were all afraid that the oven was going to explode.

Step dad opened the broiler and out flies Patches with smoke and singed fur trailing behind him. The cat was obviously traumatized, but otherwise okay.  No cat should survive getting broiled.  No MORTAL cat.

Inevitably the day arrived when I came home from school and Patches was nowhere to be found.  Mom had given him away to an unsuspecting family.  There wasn't much debate or discourse on the topic, but even as a small kid, I wasn't overly sad to see him go.  He was the cat from hell, after all.  I just felt sorry for the family that got duped into taking Patches home.

You would think that after all of that, I would never subject myself to that type of torture again.  I had a few dogs over the years, but my man person does not enjoy dogs. Because we worked different shifts, I was lonely.  What do I adopt? A kitten!

Not six months later, my boss talked me into adopting a kitten he rescued.  Two kittens!

Somehow they've managed to survive to adulthood.  I love them, but they drive me absolutely bat shit insane.

Cats: Mission Accomplished.

Snoring

I've never been able to tolerate a snorer.  Even the lightest snores will keep me awake in a state of edginess, ready to assault my victim should their snores escalate and exceed my toleration barrier.  You know the wet snore - it's the one that sounds like the snorer is gargling on the contents of their own sinuses.

I am married to a snorer.  We've tried everything from nose strips for him, ear plugs for me, even to the extreme of a c-pap machine.  The c-pap came with its own set of problems.  I have a pathological fear of hospital masks.  Anything that looks like it belongs in an ICU room will quickly turn me into a scared crying little girl. 

Well, the c-pap was poorly tolerated by my manperson. At bedtime he felt as though he were locked in eternal battle with a leaf blower, so he ditched the c-pap after a few weeks.

He's back to snoring and I'm back to daydreaming about getting a voodoo doll with Manperson's face on it.

He says I snore too, but since he always falls asleep first and I don't have to try to sleep through myself snoring, I see this as a non-issue.  And because I'm a girl, I imagine that my snores are cute and adorable.

For now, I dose myself on small amounts of Klonopin.  Klonopin is great, kids.  I could sleep through an earthquake with just half a milligram of the stuff.  So, a headset connected to my mp3 player plus klonopin prior to bedtime has, for the most part, resolved my issues with the lumberjack next to me in bed.

My intolerance for snoring goes way back.  Even as a little tike, strange noises coming out of sleeping people was an assault to my senses. 

My best friend in the world, bless her heart, was a wet snorer.  Not a loud obnoxious snorer, but the type that always sounded like she was suffering from sinus problems, as I'm sure she was.  Nowadays I wouldn't hold this against her, but little kids don't know any better.

One night during a sleep over, my mother had announced "Lights Out" and before I had a chance to beat her to dreamland, her snores drifted out from her end of the bed.  Her sinuses must have been giving her hell, but I still needed to sleep.

Kids are extremely inventive. After an hour of nudging with no result, I set about inventing a contraption to stop my friend's snoring once and for all - for the night at least.

All that was required was a long length of yarn, a toe, and a few bedposts. 
One end was attached to her toe, while  the length of the yarn was wrapped around the bedposts and draped over on the opposite side of the bed where I was laying. 

It was designed in such a way that all I had to do was tug on my end of the yarn and her foot would be lifted off of the bed.  Once I let go, her foot would go crashing back down onto the bed, jarring her just enough to interrupt her snoring for a while. 

I soon learned the essence behind "Pavlov's Dogs."  After enough tugging on the yarn and yanking her leg up off of the bed, I believed that I had somehow trained her subconscious brain to keep the snoring to a minimum by negative reinforcement.  Either that or I just grew so tired that I didn't seem to care enough to pull on the yarn anymore by that point.

Twenty years later, I still use this tactic, only slightly modified, of course.  It would be silly to tie yarn to my manperson's toe.  Besides, we don't have bedposts.  Still, negative reinforcement is a powerful motivator even for actions that are not controlled consciously. 

Anything can be used to deter a snorer as long as the action is jarring enough to get them to change position.  Nudging and saying "roll over" can get boring and monotonous, (not to mention mostly ineffectual) so why not make it a little fun for yourself? After all, they're torturing you and keeping you awake anyway, and payback is fun.

If you have a dog, invite them up on the bed. Pick a random spot on your partner. Apply peanut butter. Enjoy results.

Cat + Laser pointer.  Need I elaborate?

Suddenly go manic and fly into a 4 am cleaning frenzy in the bedroom.  My manperson is an exceptionally sloppy human and any fluctuation in the clutter force will interrupt his sleep.  Make sure you clean with the lights on.

Freeze them out. Take away bed partner's blankets and pillows.  Turn fan on high.  Multiple fans work better.

This technique is the opposite of the freeze-out technique.  Pile all the blankets and pillows you own onto bed partner's side of the bed.  The trapped body heat will make them miserable.  If they wake up, tell them they stole the blankets. 

This may not work for everyone, but it has worked for me.  Feign anger.  Jolt the bed as you angrily grab your pillow and blanket, and announce out loud that you're sleeping on the couch.  Make a lot of noise and grumble as you slowly walk away from the bed.  Manperson usually wakes up feeling slightly guilty and takes extra precaution to cease snoring...at least long enough for me to fall asleep in my own bed.

This is a last resort.  Pop an antihistamine like Benedryl, and initiate sex by any means necessary. Once bed partner is wide awake and feeling quite satisfied with him/her self, the antihistamine will have kicked in, allowing you to fall asleep instantly, before post-coital cuddles even. Leave bed partner awake to deal with your snoring.

Really, the possibilities are endless.  Ice cold feet on the butt is simple but effective.  If your partner is an exceptionally light sleeper (mine is not), stand over their side of the bed, and stare at them, grinning maniacally.  Eventually they will jolt awake from the sense of dread and doom emanating from your vicinity. 

Honestly, the most effective way to avoid being kept awake all night by the snot gurgle snoring is to go to sleep before the snorer does.  Some of us are just night owls though.  Take me for example.  The Manperson won't be home until damn near sunrise because he got called in to fix a diseased server at work.  What am I doing? Posting a blog about snoring.  I amaze myself sometimes.