The Cats Get The Bed

Featured in:

I do not get half the bed. I know that's the basic assumption - the wife gets half and the husband gets half. We might well want to meet in the middle, but we each get half. After all, fair is fair. And believe me, I'm not greedy. I am very pleased indeed to be sharing and would be utterly thrilled with half. Oh woe is me, if I could just get that half.

BUT there are THE CATS. And the cats, so it seems, require their half too. And as any PhD mathematician will tell you, there is no such thing as THREE halves. So... the wife gets half... the cats get half... and I get a mystical half that exists only the minds of my wife and those CATS! Ever snuggle up to a bed post? Well that's me at 3am when I wake up with my arms around wood and my cheek scrunched up into my nose, gasping for breath and splinters.

Did I mention that I love my wife and, of course, those cats?

I'm not a very good negotiator. Basically, my approach is to plead during the day and whimper quietly at night. I'd like to be more intelligent and formidable about the whole thing, but when I have those gorgeous judgmental eyes staring through me on the one hand and my wife impatiently but-of-course-lovingly dismissing me on the other, it's a little hard to find my boardroom stature. And I have to admit that every now and then, deep in the middle of the dark crowded night, I spark awake to full alert when one of our truly loving kitties retaliates (lovingly of course) for my emasculated and feeble attempt at recovering just a little bit of wiggle room in my non-existent half! A catty claw stings no matter how it's been negotiated.

In the end, one has to balance all the good and the bad, I guess. Sure, I am wanting for a bit of space in the bed for my 185cm, 100kg frame, but I also have the satisfaction of massive pet food and veterinary bills (I feel great that I can afford it), beheaded garden flowers (it's like cat art!), the stench of the litter tray (enhancing my appreciation of the beheaded garden flowers), toy mice underfoot almost everywhere (an agility course adding to my daily exercise regimen), and warmth for my cold face (when one of the cats sits on me in the night... in order to preserve my wife's half of the bed, I assume). What more can a man ask for?

And then at 6:30am every morning, the kids wake up, come into our room and take the OTHER half of the bed.

From an anonymous DKC staffer.