Death Wish of a Cat

This is my kitty boy Arthur. His full name is King Arthur Pendragon. Creative aren’t we?

I’m not quite sure what emotion he’s communicating in this look. It could be annoyance that I’m taking a picture of him or maybe the eyes of a psycho plotting the imminent death of the photographer (me). Honestly, I think he’s getting geared up to attack the cell phone, which he often does when I have it out near him. It’s his reaction when I’m not paying attention to him.

An attack of the cell phone looks a little something like this.

He is my snuggle buddy though. I’ve always thought this cat loved me. He’s always by my side. If I can get him to stay put and not attack the evil attention stealing cell phone, I get good pictures of him. Like an good cat owner, I share those on Instagram. Everyone wants to see pictures of my cat. Right?

One thing you may have noticed in all of these pictures is how serious the cat is. He never smiles. I’m beginning to think the close loving bond the two of us hold is a sham. He’s not loving up to me because he wants to always be close to me and relish in snuggles. It’s because he’s living up to that old adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

This thought normally wouldn’t have crossed my mind. In fact, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind if a certain incident, several months ago, hadn’t occurred.

Several months ago my husband was away for two months for a training. My kitty boy loved this because it meant he had extra room to lay as close to my face as possible. Usually, with my husband there he has to squeeze in between us and spin around a few hundred times before he’s created a nice little nest for himself right between us. He’s much happier with this arrangement when my husband isn’t there, but he’ll take what he can get to be near me.

As I was sleeping, to help you visualize this, I sleep on my side with my bottom arm under my head and pillow, propped up on my husbands pillow. The top arm is usually bent at the elbow with my hand close to my chin wrapped up in the blanked hold it tight around my shoulder for warmth. The cat lays next to me, sometimes stretching out his front paw to place it lovingly on my left arm.

This particular night was different.

I snuggled into bed tossing and turning a bit to find just the right comfort zone. As always Arthur waited patiently for me to settle down, then he came over and found his comfort zone. Right next to me, snuggled up to my torso. He’s a big cat. Long and muscular. We own another cat as well, she’s tiny, easy to pick up with one hand. Not Arthur, if you want to pick him up, it’s two hands and you better continue holding him with both of those hands. He’s long and solid. He’s proud of that too. You should see him strut around the house.

Together in our snuggled up comfort we drifted off to sleep to the sound of his rhythmic purr. Ahhhhhhhhh. Perfection.

Some point later I woke up to him moving. He was moving up toward my face. Not a big deal, he often walks up to my head, licks my forehead, because he’s weird, then circles me a couple of times only to lie back down where he started.

This time was different. He didn’t move by getting up and walking. Instead, he swiftly moved his body forward, almost in something like a fast army crawl. He pinned my top arm down that was tucked under the blanket, then laid himself across my pillow which had my bottom are under it. He completely pinned me down! I was in the middle of yelling a groggy “don’t you dare!” at him when he flopped his body down right over my face!

He had me completely pinned!

I flailed as best I could trying to use my face to shake him off. Note to self: my face is not strong enough to budge a 15 pound cat.

He remained situated on my face and held my hands down. Normally this wouldn’t have been hard to move him off of me, but my hand was tied up in the blanket and I had to struggle to free it, and my bottom arm was pinned at just the right angle under the cat and pillow I couldn’t free it!

Is this how I would die? If he couldn’t have me 100% to himself, then no one could? Was it a crime of cat attention passion? Or, did he secretly hate me like I’ve read in so many articles about cats trying to kill their humans. I only thought they were satire. Humor at how much our cats really love us. I was beginning to think there was some truth to it all.

My cat had a death wish against me!

Finally, I freed the hand from under the blanket and was able to budge him off of my face so I could breathe.

If you’ve ever tried to move a cat from a place they didn’t want to move from, you might be able to fathom just a small amount of the struggle I was going through.

Finally I was free, I could breathe and the cat was visibly annoyed with me.

My entire life view of my relationship with this cat was flipped upside down. I fail to understand his motives. Why would he do this to me? I mean the world to this cat! I can tell because I’m the only human he’ll interact with.

Today, I still love this cat. He still shimmies his way in between my husband and I, only now if my husband is too close, he meows accusingly at him before snuggling up next to me.

In hindsight, I’m sure this was a premeditated crime of passion. Unfortunately, I’ll never be able to get an answer out of him that I’ll understand.

At night, we are much more aware of his movements. Not just the ones where he knocks over my glass of water for the hundredth time. Now, we pay attention to what part of the bed he’s hiding on. Staring at me.

I know there will be a next time. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but this is the face I wake up to every morning.

Has your pet ever plotted your demise? Tell me about it in the comments. Let me know I’m not alone, lol.