Frik, on Daylight Savings Time

It appears that Frik strongly disagrees with Daylight Savings Time. He seems to feel that daylight is better spent than saved – in productive activity such as, taking an example completely at random, that which involves Opening Cans and Feeding The Cat. So this morning we had quite a time.

Act 1: The very first light of day. Surely such an event is best celebrated by having everyone get up to serve breakfast. (Frik can’t do it for himself. No thumbs.) Many loud cat-comments were made to that effect (probably, though who can really tell?) but no one responded to them adequately. Frik had to step up the action. Louder howling. More door banging. (He has a trick about using his paws to slap at the edge of the bathroom vanity cabinet, which then bounces open and shut, making lots of noise. Noise that surely will prompt someone to “get up and open those cans!”) We just yelled at him. And tried to go back to sleep.

Act 2: “OK, if that didn’t get you – this will…” Frik can barf up a hairball when the situation really calls for it. This is often a good strategy because, of course, hairball spew usually results in instant, on-the-feet action, which could reasonably be expected to also subsequently result in ‘while you are up, why don’t we just have some breakfast?’ Frik doesn’t just do hairballs in one spot and be done, mind you – oh, no. A good hairball calls for at least 3 different spots of spew. So tired were we, however, that we ignored this too. (We are not morning people.) We didn’t get up.

Act 3: Rattle things. Now, Mark has clutter on the floor by his side of the bed. (I don’t know why this otherwise reasonable man has to have little piles of books and bullets and pens in a messy 'nest' in the corner of the room by the bed, but there you have it – he does.) And, (as Frik knows) books and bags-of-bullets and pens can all be rattled to make just enough sound to wake the sleeping. Amazingly, at this point Mark DID jump out of bed – to chase Frik away with the ‘canned air’ that makes a cat-frightening sound and is usually quite effective as a deterrent. (Though not this time, of course, but it was worth a try.) Unfortunately for Frik, Mark went right back to bed. "Unbelievable! Would it have pained him to open a can? How much trouble can that be for someone with thumbs?"

Act 4: Walk around on the bed, purring madly. Everyone loves purring – and everyone loves to have a cat in their lap – and doesn’t all that ‘love’ make you want to eat? ("Oh – was that your head I stepped on?") A gentle shove knocked Frik off the bed. We knocked him off, back he came. Off and back; off and back. But we kept trying to go back to sleep.

Act 5: Time for more hairball action. (I kid you not.) 3 more spew sites. This time we had to get up to clean them up. But even at that, it was only, maybe, 5:30 AM – nowhere near time to get up. So we went back to bed. Frik couldn’t believe it!

The Grand Finale: We had a free-for-all. Maddie got rattled and started running around the house. “Howling” figured prominently. Mark got up and chased Frik around with the canned air again. Frik threw up again. Maddie ran under the bed and Mark stepped on her tail. Frik wailed. Maddie did too. Mark… not so much wailing, as such, but he did have a few things to say.

But there was really no hope for sleeping any longer. So Mark got up and fed the little buggers. After he went in to take a shower, Frik threw up again. So much for breakfast.