Whenever it’s time to make up a bed with fresh, clean sheets, it’s as if the cats know.
They run to the bedroom. Soon, I wrestle two kitties out from underneath the sheets. They return to burrow and tumble, peek out and retreat. I coax them out, urge them to the side of the bed, and start to make the bed again.
Just as I tuck in the last corner and turn to smooth the blankets on top, I see the perfect round lump right in the middle of the bed and under my sheets.
These cats! They infuriate me! I start from the beginning and remake the bed so the sheets and blankets rest smooth and precise. Somehow, a cat wriggles his way back up beneath the covers and lounges there.
I hear purring. I hear satisfied and taunting purring.
I look at that rumpled mess of a made bed. No order, no smooth lines. Finally I realize that as long as I have these mischievous felines, I will have a lumpy bed. You can’t make a bed properly with cats around.
Once I realize this, I just go about the process of making the bed differently. I loosen the corners, I fluff up the blankets, and I invite a cat into caverns and caves I design.
Those things I resist, those battles I fight, might be moments of surrender to the annoyance. Some evenings, I retire to bed to see round lumps hiding under the covers. Purring. Loud purring. It’s funny. It’s endearing. It’s a source of delight.
Could the things that annoy me the most become a source of delight somehow? Those things about my family members that I want to change might become endearing things. Things I would miss if I didn’t have them around.
