Does Your Cat Know What You're Watching?

Phone calls to and from friends are an important part of my life. Mouse and I had our usual Saturday night conversation last night, touching base, covering what had happened since we last talked (which, this week, was the night before) and just enjoying each other's company. It's this kind of thing that makes my life richer.

One thing I was reporting on was the final session of the EfM mentor training I'd just finished that afternoon. Somehow, I don't remember precisely how it came about, in the course of a conversation at training, I mentioned that the boys usually had me awake by 4-4:30 so I turn on the TV until a time closer to when I felt I should get out of bed and into the daily routine (namely feeding the boys). I mentioned that about the only program on at that hour that I found even remotely interesting was one called "Mummy Autopsy" so that was my preferred morning-starter. It makes sense to me; I like forensics and I also like archaeology and anthropology. Mummy Autopsy gives me both and, quite often, lets me doze a few more minutes more.

The general consensus of the group was "You watch WHAT?" Most of them, I guess, wouldn't find such a program interesting at all, much less that early in the morning. But the boys don't seem to mind. Since they know I was awake enough to turn on the TV and gravitate to that channel before lying back down again, they have expectations of breakfast somewhere in the near future and so they usually stop acting like the house is the track at Indy and the bed is a catapult into the fourth turn (pun intended).

The boys aren't usually interested in TV. Once in a while, if they hear a strange cat-sound, they'll glance at it but usually, for them at least, it's just background. Maybe they don't realize what Mummy Autopsy is and, very surely, they don't really care. They gave up interest in mummies when their ancestors got wrapped up in Egypt. They don't even pay attention when the mummy being "autopsied" is one of their ancestors. They just know that somewhere between four and four-thirty in the morning, they will have made enough noise and commotion to cause Mom to turn on the TV and then sink back down into her pillow for a short while. They can then settle down and wait for nature to take its course. Of course, weekends kind of get messed up because Mom doesn't HAVE to get up at the usual time and Mummy Autopsy isn't on, but they do try to be flexible -- or at least, as flexible as a cat can be without consigning his/her own dignity to the litter box.

The group at the training session may not have understood the 4am Mummy Autopsy program bit but many certainly understood the cat part. There are a lot of people owned by cats who can certainly identify with the phenomenon.

The boys were singularly unimpressed when I told them that they'd been part of the conversation at training but Mouse thought the whole thing hilarious. In fact, blame her for this post. The cats may have provided the basis for the story but the Mouse made me tell it.