Cat Compensations

5:30 in the  morning. We don't need an alarm clock; we have cats.

It's below zero outside, the ground frozen hard, ice everywhere. We've got another 15 minutes before we have to start the whole ball rolling -- another precious 15 minutes, but we're not going to get them. Mitzi wants to party. She's tearing around the room, chasing something under the bed. For one horrible moment I think she's brought in something tiny, scared, and wounded -- something that could be leaking body fluids and worse all over the place as it runs for its life. But no: I see she is hotly pursuing an earplug. The very one I was looking for last night, as a matter of fact, which I knew I'd left in the middle of my bedside table. But just like the wash I hang neatly over the laundry caddy, or the towels I fold carefully over radiators, it's no match for my  hell-bent-on-chaos cat. With Mitzi around, clean laundry ends up on floors, under dusty beds. Small but necessary items -- keys, memory sticks, earrings, pens -- don't stay where they've been put. Foodstuffs have to be wrapped and stored like plutonium.

Finished with suspending disbelief, Mitzi has started to meow. I've had dozens of cats in my life -- well over a hundred, probably -- but I've never heard any cat meow like her. Her meows are loud and operatic, lasting many seconds, with trills, pitches, and arpeggios. Maverick, her companion, has a simple, wimpy meow which is more of a mee, over in half a second. Mitzi puts him to shame. In fact, in every way she outdoes him: as she engages in manuever after manuever to get us out of bed, he does nothing more than stand there like a sentinel, wearing an expression that manages to be both benevolent and clueless.

We burrow down into the warmth of our bed and pull the blankets over our heads, so she launches her next assault: the highly effective flying-leap-onto-human-bladder attack, followed (if we don't manage to catch her), by the even more effective dancing-about-the-human-head ploy. She's a hefty cat, but we finally manage to grab her and fling her off.

But she doesn't give up. This is the one thing that amazes us about Mitzi: she never, ever gives up. Her next attack is the one that finally works:  the mattress assault. Our mattress is a good one and relatively new too. I can't let her do to it what she has done to the carpet. Groaning, I heave myself up. Both cats race joyfully out of the room as soon as I push the door open, which infuriates me -- as though the very first action of any groggy, fresh-out-of-bed human being is going to be filling their bowls.

A few minutes later, I am standing in front of the cupboard, saying, through gritted teeth, what I say every single morning: If you do not get your *&$£"!! paws and tails out of my &$(£*-ing way, then I cannot fill your &^%(*&-ing dishes! They never get it, of course. Not even the occasional crushed paw will keep them from weaving in and out of my legs, getting in my way as I attempt to find their food and fill their bowls.

Then we make our way down the stairs, one foot at a time, gingerly -- because when you've got cats, you've got a built-in obstacle course, only the obstacles never stay in the same place where you can see them.

You non-cat people are shaking your heads at this. Why, you wonder -- with very good reason -- would anybody put themselves through all this trouble? Why do people pay to keep cats, to wake them up in the morning, get in their way, shed on their clothes, shred their furniture, and foul their houses with the bodies of rodents? And believe me, we ask ourselves the very same question, all the time.

On the porch, my husband and I see yesterday's mail: university brochures addressed to our youngest daughter. "At least we'll never have to send Mitzi or Maverick to college," I say. "Mitzi could probably get a scholarship," my husband replies. But then we are quiet. Because we can both remember a time when it wasn't just cats who woke us up in the morning, who trashed the furniture and made noise and clamored for their breakfast.

When we get home, Mitzi is waiting for us at the gate. She greets us with one of her operatic meows and follows us up our drive. Maverick waits with admirable patience while we unlock the door. Later, while we eat, they put on an impressive and highly entertaining floor show, leaping from table to welsh dresser to counter top. After dinner, Mitzi curls up on my lap and purrs; Maverick chooses to settle on my husband's feet. So, you see, there are compensations.

When our daughter leaves for university next year, there will be even more.