So this is how I spent my Valentines Day. I woke up with the same headache I’d had for the previous 36 hours, only worse. A full-body scan revealed that I was feeling lacklustre and lethargic. I emailed work that I wouldn’t be in, and went back to bed.
Eventually I got up and turned the TV on, which I almost never do, and knit and blogged. Basically it was just a lazy, layabout day punctuated by Anacins and naps.
Around suppertime, I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. I couldn’t find anything meal-like in my kitchen, so I baked myself a golden Duncan Heinz birthday cake, iced it with Betty Crocker chocolate icing, and ate a quarter of it for dinner.
I spent the evening the same way I spent the day: uneventfully. And then, around 10:00, I went to bed. This is where things got weird.
As you know, Duncan the Dogcat lives for bedtime. (This is a picture of him a couple of weeks ago, doing the pre-bedtime snuggle.) He’s the happiest, cuddliest, purriest, snuggliest bedtime cat ever. In the month and a half he’s lived here, he has gone from sharing my pillow to using my face as his pillow. I lie on my back with my right arm outstretched, and Duncan lies down beside me in the curl of my arm and then he lays his face on my right cheek and wraps his right arm around my neck, and purrs like a lion.
So Thursday night, I climbed into bed and stretched out my arm for Duncan, who is normally about one second behind me.
No Duncan.
“Duncan?” I called.
No repsonse.
“Dunc?”
Nothing.
I got out of bed and went looking for him.
Halfway down the stairs I spotted him lying on the back of the couch.
“Duncan?”
He looked at me lazily.
“It’s bedtime, Dunc.”
He closed his eyes.
I felt soooo rejected and sorry for myself. I believe I actually whined out loud to my cat about how it was Valentines Day and how I wasn’t feeling well and if this was his way of telling me the honeymoon was over, well, his timing sucked. Then I marched over to the couch, picked him up, and MADE him come to bed with me. Pathetic, eh?
I actually like being single on Valentines Day, because it’s an emotionally manipulative holiday and I prefer to have nothing to do with it. So I couldn’t believe I played the Valentines Day card, and on a CAT at that. Maybe I was a tad feverish.
Anyway, the next morning I was telling my coworkers about it, and one of them told me that Christie Blatchford has a puppy and she writes about the puppy a lot, and one day the puppy wouldn’t go to bed with her. So she consulted a puppy psychologist who said the puppy now feels secure in her home and in her love, and no longer feels the need to suck up to her. AND, if she really wants the puppy to start sleeping with her again, she ought to play hard to get.
My coworkers agreed I should play hard to get with Duncan.
I haven’t played hard to get with anyone since Douggie Prince in eighth grade. (And not very well – Douggie thought I really wasn’t interested, and he just shrugged and moved on to the next girl.)
My coworkers offered tips.
“Just ignore him,” they said, “Avoid eye contact. Don’t dote on him. Don’t beg him to come to bed. Make him think he needs you more than you need him.”
So last night I didn’t come home after work. I went out for dinner with a friend. I didn’t even call Duncan to let him know I’d be late. I waltzed in around 10:00 and fed him but I didn’t get down on the floor with him and tell him how much I adored him and I didn’t brush his hair or tickle his tummy or kiss his toes or bury my nose in his neck and tell him how good he smelled.
And then, when I went to bed, guess who was one second behing me, snuggling up, using my face as his pillow, and purring like a lion? Playing hard-to-get worked much better on Duncan than it did on Douggie Prince. So of course I wrapped my arms around him and told him how much I adored him and how good he smelled. And now we are living happily ever after again.
Tags:
My cat and I found each other at the SPCA. She had been taken there by her previous owners who abandoned her because she wasn’t good with children. Apparently, it was easier to get rid of the cat then to teach the children not to pull her tail.
Anyhow. She will always be a little insecure from her earlier traumas; she seems to wonder when the other shoe will drop, no matter how much loving we lavish on her. Playing hard to get with her would break both our hearts, as I’m sure it broke yours to put Duncan on ignore, if only for a few minutes.
I love the shot of D. prepping for bedtime snuggles.
You big Silly!! Duncan knew you were feeling bad & he’d already been to bed several times that day . . . . And what’s so bloody special about Valentine’s Day??? The card companies invented it to sell more Stuff. You don’t need Stuff. Girl, you gotta get out more!!
Susan, even though Duncan came from the Humane Society and I don’t know his personal history, I don’t get the sense that he had a traumatic childhood. It actually didn’t much bother me to put him on ignore for a few minutes, and it was definitely worth it to get him off the couch and back in bed, purring and snuggling. 😉
Sharon, thanks for the advice, but like I said, I don’t have any special affection for VD – quite the opposite. I’m not looking for stuff. And I get out more than I want to, actually.
That is the cutest story…other than you being sick…way to go Duncan…what a lover boy!
When I lived in a tri-level home, my big orange kitty used to stand at the top of the stairs, looking down at me and meow when he was ready for bed. Then he would periodically repeat this activity every 20-30min until I came upstairs.
Strange how animals let you know when you are disturbing THEIR bedtime routine. He was around 10 yrs old then. Now at 16, he just goes directly to bed with no fuss. He is still very active and cuddly with no grey hairs. Thanks for the story.
Take care,
Mo
how could you not call?!?!?
I LOVED this!!! Excellent!!!
Pre-bedtime-snuggles-Duncan is KILLING me. So adorable! I can understand why you’d be lonely in bed without his furry tummy to rub. Playing hard to get is clearly a highly effective technique when it comes to certain pets. I use it now and then with Emmy Lou, our Catdog, when she is being aloof. I know it’s working when I finally look over at her and she’s still wearing her extremely serious shar pei face but her tail is just a fuzzy blur.
This is hilarious. I’ve always been lousy at playing hard to get, no matter how furry my target. 😉
I love the pic of Duncan a la belly.. my mom has a orange cat who sits like that all the time. We call him the porn star.
It’s funny how much we come to miss the cute (and sometimes annoying) things out cats do. When the other half is here for the weekend, the kids have to go in the basement (not so bad, they have their own futon down there) and I miss my big snuggy puss purring on my head.
I wonder what psychologicla tricks I can use on Rocky to get him to stop tossing my wool….
That is seriously the best story ever. I love how human cats are. I can’t believe that playing hard to get actually worked with your cat. Mine would have appreciated the solitude
Isn’t that just like a man – you get a better response when you ignore him.