Bedtime routine gone wrong

Look at her in all her chunky glory.  You just have to love her.

Today I am going to share a story that will make me look like a crazy cat lady...110%. No doubt. Let it be known that I actually do have a boyfriend, a life, a job, and friends.  I know reading this story you may really doubt me, but I swear, I'm actually not a crazy cat lady.  But my cats do rule my damn house and I have no control over these things anymore.  I can't stop this. It's been going on far too long and there is nothing I can do. Plus, I love my kitties and well, this is how it is.  It's a bit too late to try to solve this problem. 

Off to bed we go.  Sunshine has slept in my room with me for all 14 years of her life.  She has no intention of stopping now.  She sleeps next to me, cuddled up against me and after an hour or so has almost my entire half of the bed because she stretches herself out. Whatever, I can handle that.  What I can't handle, but still do handle every night, is the "bedtime routine."  It's worse than anything I've dealt with involving kids.

True story, every single night at bedtime....

I head into bed, and grab Sunshine.  She is old, fat, and has arthritis, so jumping into my fairly high bed is a battle for her.  She basically hooks her claws near the top and climbs her way up.  So bringing her into bed seems like it'd be the logical thing to do.   But she won't stay in bed.  That would be far too easy.  

Off she goes to eat something and do whatever around the house, while we fall asleep.  About 15 minutes after I'm in bed, about to fall asleep, the crying begins.  This cat doesn't even know how to meow, and makes some odd squeaking noise, REPEATEDLY walking through the house. It's loud. She makes it sound like she is dying because she is so lonely.  I call her from the bedroom  because apparently she has forgotten where we went and is devastated about being alone in the house.  She slowly walks into my bedroom with her long nails clicking across the wood floors.  I can hear where she is the entire time because she WILL NOT let anybody clip her nails.  When she's close, I tell her to jump into bed.  She stops walking, then it goes silent.  (I'm pretty sure she is just sitting on the floor, making sure I almost fall back to sleep before her next move.)  Once it's been a minute or two and I'm almost asleep, she goes over to the plastic trash barrel under my nightstand and bangs it against the wall, repeatedly.   This is usually the point where I get mad.  But I can't yell because she will run away, do her scratching routine elsewhere, and come back to start over the entire process.  She's trained me over the years.  It's just easier to do it her way and I will get to sleep earlier.

Generally, at this point, I can convince her to jump on the bed.  It's a 50/50 chance that she will listen and do her half jumping/half climbing thing.  If not, I usually will untangle myself from Justin, roll half way out of bed and pick her up myself.  She likes to back away from me as far as possible during this, just so that I almost fall face first out of bed. 

Finally, she is in bed.  But it's not quite over.  If I don't pet her, she will go stand on my nightstand and stare at me.  It's freaky.  So I usually half ass pet her for a few minutes until she lays down. I keep the blanket over my head before if she can see my face, she will lick my entire face.  It hurts! And well, I don't actually enjoy getting my face licked clean before bed. Who knew. Then finally, she lays down.  She's just like Justin in the sense that in about 30 seconds she is sound asleep.  On my arm.  All 15 lbs of her.   And my arm falls asleep. EVERY.FREAKING.NIGHT.

Yep, and I let this happen....because this cat knows all my secrets.  She lived with me through my twenties and may even remember things I can't remember.  It scares me. She could start her own blog and I may be in a little bit of trouble!  

But really, she's a sweetie.  Every night she pisses me off.  Then she comes into bed and purrs so loud and is so happy to lay next to me.  I'm a sucker.  I fall for this every night.  The odd part is that she has really become Justin's cat.  She is with him anytime he's home, but for some reason, she's all mine at bedtime.  Awesome.