Sometimes, I just want to get some sleep.
I do not want for my dog to decide that he now needs to bark at thunder, on the night the television weatherman tells us is going to be the stormiest so far in a very stormy month. I appreciate that the dog is protecting me from the thunder gods, but really. …
I also do not necessarily want to have just drifted off to a deep, much-needed REM sleep only to be awakened by the cat loudly yowling in the kitchen. When I stumble into the kitchen and see him on the countertop, where he rarely goes because he knows it means instant clobberment, I do not want to look up on the top of the cabinets where he’s trying to climb and spy a little sparrow the cat has brought in through the kitty door. As much as I know it is his nature, I particularly do not want the cat to keep sharing the kill with me.
And as I’m tromping around the kitchen in my jammies with a broom in one hand and a lightweight jacket in the other (the idea being to softly throw the jacket over aforementioned sparrow so I could net her and toss her out the door I have left open for her escape), I completely and utterly DO NOT WANT to notice that the spider I have just tried to sweep back out the patio door has a very large egg sac on her back. And really, truly, at 2 a.m., I do not wish to have to get the dustpan and gently scoop the spider up and out the door so as not to spill thousands of baby spiders in my home because I know I would never be able to sleep in this house again.
And I really don’t want to have to give up on being able to get the bird out the door and just turn off the lights, leave the door open, scoop the cat up and go to the bedroom in the hope that the bird will find her way to freedom.
I don’t want to lie in bed with the dog growling sotto voce at the thunder now because he knows I’ll smack him if he barks and the cat batting at the bedroom door yowling every five seconds because I do not understand that he has work to do.
And I don’t want to go back out into the kitchen to check on the bird only to discover that it is perched on top of the light fixture in my kitchen and has demonstrated right there in the kitchen the reality that birds have no control over their intestinal sphincter muscles.
And when I finally get the little bird flying in the direction of the back door, I deeply, profoundly do not want the cat to jump four feet in the air and bring her down in one graceful leap. I appreciate the athleticism, but really.…
And I don’t want to spend another 20 minutes chasing the cat from under the futon to under my bed into the laundry room to the bathroom behind the toilet all the time with the bird in his mouth, growling and hissing like he has transmogrified into a minor demon from The Exorcist.
I don’t want to finally get the now-dead bird away from the cat, the cat settled down, the dog finally sleeping only to have the clock radio go off with tales of marching in the streets of Tehran. I am completely in solidarity with the Iranian people in their quest for democracy, but really. …
Sometimes, I just want to get some sleep.
