Living with animals

Animals are good for you, they say. People who own animals live longer, happier, healthier lives. Animals know when you're down and curl up beside you to comfort you. They give you unconditional love and affection. They help you relax.

Too bad no one told these two. It started with cat no 1 throwing up on our bedroom floor and in the hallway at 02:30 in the morning. After I cleaned up the disgusting mess and went back to bed, he went to the litter box and started digging. I tried to ignore it. A few minutes later he was at his food bowl and dug on the floor around it, thinking he could cover the leftovers. With linoleum. After a while, he was back on the litter box, probably for more serious business, and again, he dug. Only when he digs, he misses the litter box completely and digs everywhere else around him except there: on the floor, on the toilet, on the wall, on the ceiling.

Now that cat no 1 was (presumably) done, it was cat no 2's turn. He started by munching on some delicious dried food, the sound of which (crunch, crunch) echoed across our apartment and all the way to our neighbours across the street. Then, with a full belly, he started digging around the food bowl. He learned this technique from his big brother I suppose. Now it was time for him to visit the litter box. Dig. Get outside and into the bedroom, shake paws, send bits of silica litter flying all over the bedroom floor. Jump on the bed a couple of times. As soon as I manage to ignore this and fall asleep again, he's back on the box. Digging. Digging so deep that I'm sure he's half way to Australia by now.

The third time he visited the litter box (don't ask what he was doing. I don't know and I don't want to know), the time was just before 6 and I gave up trying to sleep. And I wondered. How is my life getting longer, happier, healthier if I never get any sleep? How have my two caring (or so they say) cats missed that their nocturnal behaviour is turning me into a miserable, sleep-deprived mess and why haven't they tried to comfort me? And in which way is night-time poo evidence of my cats' unconditional love and affection? I am most definitely not relaxed.