Rude Awakenings Part 1

Rude Awakenings: Part 1

Life with Gus can never be boring.  He was refrigerated as a kitten and I'm convinced that it gave him some sort of brain damage.  That's really the only way that I can explain my cat.  He's got severe brain damage.

My parents also suspect that he is not a cat, but rather a rabbit/cat hybrid because he has unusually long rabbit feet in the back.

I too often doubt he's a cat.  I suspect he's a perpetually drunk baby hippo with springs strapped to his feet.  That's the only possible explanation for the level of chaos and destruction that he's able to cause.

Gus does not think that he is a rabbit or a drunk hippo.  

This is more how he sees himself:

His self-image is not entirely correct, but he'd still insist that all I could tell you about him would be lies.

Gus doesn't like for me to sleep.  Ever.  In fact, he hates it more than anything in the world.  As a result, he does his best to keep me from sleeping.  It's just that we have different visions of the bedroom.  I see it as a place to sleep, but he sees it as something that's a little like Disney Land.  

Here's Gus' version of my bedroom...that way you'll understand a little better the story I'm about to tell you.

Now that you know what my bedroom looks like, you can understand a little better the events of this morning's rude awakening.  

At about four in the morning this series of events begins.  It happened very quickly.  Gus, who usually likes to chase shadows on the wall all night and typically ends up landing on my head two or three times a night, must have seen a particularly menacing shadow above the best dresser ever that he simply had to stalk.  He launches himself off the launch pad hard enough that he moves the entire bed.  That's when I started to wake up.

His oh so graceful baby hippo landing clears nearly everything off the top of the dresser and rearranges anything that didn't hit the floor.  Apparently frightened by the crash, he then leaped to what he perceives as a jungle gym but what is actually a rack for drying clothes.  

Under the pressure of the landing, the jungle gym broke to pieces.  I was showered by wood shrapnel but still didn't get out of bed.  You have to understand that this is not all that unusual.  

Apparently afraid of the explosion of his jungle gym, Gus then dives into the bookshelves that he loves, but does so with such force that the shelf can't take it and falls crashing to the floor.  That's when I rolled over to get up and inspect the damage.  At that moment Gus was already sitting on the bed by my head, looking at me like he was just as surprised as I was.