Perhaps you like films. If so, you may have viewed the Sam Peckinpah classic, The Wild Bunch. The movie portrayed a Western gang on a final violent series of exploits in the American West and Mexico.
The Wild Bunch 2023 lives with me. The gang members are Max, a cattle dog, and senior gang member; Sabrina, a sweet exterior who loves to terrorize plants; and Marcus, the gang’s mastermind. It doesn’t look like a gang of hardened criminals, do they? A happy-go-lucky dog and two kittens. Please wait until you’ve settled in for a night’s sleep and listen to them pound across the floor chasing balls, cat toys, or dragging the sartorial choices your wife has selected for tomorrow’s luncheon.
Later on, they split up. The cats assert their right to the bed, making you sleep in exceptionally contorted positions. A single cat, it’s too dark to tell which, starts the morning wake-up routine around 04:30. Purring and licking your nose until you roll over. This part of the routine can last an entire hour.
By 05:30, the cats call in the dog to assist. He finds some random bird or rabbit to bark at wildly. Then he comes upstairs and starts growling and grumbling for you to get up and feed him. Frustrated, you give them breakfast, hoping you can go back to sleep.
You sleep peacefully for half an hour before one of the gang members asserts control over the best bird-watching window, knocks the sibling off, and starts a fight. The dog, who wanted the window for himself, joined the general melee, and they began to chase around the living room and dining room. The crash of falling lamps or the spilling of bowls finally wakes you.
When you make it downstairs, the Wild Bunch is lined up in the kitchen, insisting they are ready for a second breakfast. After all, exercise is good for the appetite.
New skills that I am working on with a crazed dog and two kittens? Opening cans while sleep-deprived.
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I have an equally naughty wild bunch at my house. They terrorize guests with their affection, have cost me $3,000 in extra fencing to keep them from jumping up on the wall and down into the lot next door, have eaten three pairs of prescription glasses, eat my chair cushions on the terraza, dined on a 200 peso bill as well as a friend’s picture, graze on hibiscus flowers, are occasional slayers of possums and squirrels and birds, hog all the room in my bed. The worst offender for kitchen theft sadly passed away last year. In his lifetime his main exploits were an entire pan of pork chops, out of the pan on the stove, while they were cooking….without disturbing the pan, three dozen cookies from a sealed Tupperware container (and the lid was still on top, although no longer sealed,) a plate of Xmas cookies, beautifully frosted, from the middle of the dining room table and a complete baked chicken nabbed by my dinner guest as the thief made his escape. Hope you are comforted by my sharing of your distress. Somehow they manage to be charming enough to compensate for the damage.
Of course they are all innocent – it’s just gleeful enthusiasm. We have to laugh. Some of what they do is infuriating, but amusing at the same time.
Amen
Nice post ✉️
On these cold Florida nights, three of our cats sleep on top of me–not my husband. I don’t dare move a muscle lest White Paws think it is time to nibble my toes through the covers and play ‘Gotcha!’ The little darlings are so lucky I love them. Those adorable little faces hide the minds of hellions.
You’ve got that right! So sweet appearing, but really little hellions.
LOL, I might be too old now to even read of this sleep-stealin’ madness! The one time we didn’t have cats, eldest daughter had a free-range hamster whose nightly exercising included coming upstairs and running loops over my reclined body. (Only me, not husband — wth??) Hamsters, thankfully, weigh less and tire more easily than kittens. Good luck tonight!
Your wild bunch sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing this with our challenge, Lou.
Who knows but what that could be the quintessential survival skill?
this was an absolutely hilarious rendition of your morning routine with the gang… I loved it!
It is their way of breaking you down. You must be very tired, Lou.
It’s their way to extort more food.
It is working very well.