Is It Friday the 13th?

It’s Friday, and ordinarily I would be bordering on ecstatic and wishing everyone “Happy Friday!” But it's starting out more like you'd expect a Friday the 13th to. Today it will be difficult not to just punch people instead. Just chalk it up to sleep deprivation. I think I’ve had 10 hours or so of sleep total since Tuesday, thanks to my household.

Can I just pack them up and ship them all to parts unknown? Just for a few days? (Everyone except Tigger. He can stay. He’s not on my list.)

Toby the Cat, being a male, being an unneutered male for a variety of reasons, has decided most nights this week it would be a great idea to yowl to see if a girl will come visit him. Logical and perfectly acceptable, if it weren’t 1 or 2 a.m. when this starts.

Then there’s Carole, my 65-year-old. To her credit, she regularly gets up and makes Toby shut up. But other nights, she’s worse than he ever dare be. Take last night. When Toby was quiet. That’s when life in a small house sucks because, unless you’re deaf, you hear everything. And I’m on the other side of the kitchen. When a cabinet or drawer is opened or closed, it sounds like someone is coming through the wall. It’s very annoying. Particularly when this occurs at 4:45 a.m. (She regularly does this kind of thing within 30 minutes of the alarm.)

Particularly when this occurs after I’ve only just gotten comfortable again from getting up with Ozzie. Ozzie, who awakened me at 4 by farting in my face. It was one of the most disgusting things ever to awake to that. Now while I appreciate that he woke me up, rather than waking to the alternative, and I appreciate that this was probably not intended, it was no less disgusting.

What was worse – and why he is on my list – is that he didn’t want to come back to bed after things were settled. He went in with Mom. Fine. I just shut my door and got back in bed. Five minutes later … he’s whining and butting the door. I get up and let him in. He won’t come to me to put him up on the bed and he proceeds to pace and pace, flopping momentarily in his own bed and on the floor. Clack. Clack. Clack. I hear his feet on the wood.

I am almost asleep – I still have half an hour before the alarm goes off – and Carole is at it again. Slam. Boom. Pop. Then, from her room, clack, clack, clack of a spoon against a bowl. About that time, it starts to pour outside.

I nestle against my pillow thinking this will drown out all of it and I can grab 30 more minutes. But no.

“Hey,” I hear my mother yell from down the hall. “It’s pouring.”

Gee thanks, ma. I’m so glad you told me as I could not hear the banging of the rain against the window right next to me and come to that conclusion on my own.

In the eternal words of Moe, “Remind me to kill you later.”