The alarm cat

Meow.

Meow.

Meow.

Meow.

Oh, for the love of…

Meow.
Meow.
Meow… meow…meow…meeeeeeeeeeeowwwwwww.

I look over at the clock.  7:17.  What the?   CRAP!  I stagger out of bed, open the bedroom door and face Minuit – the most irritated cat in the galaxy.  She squints at me with her perpetually rheumy eyes.

Meow.

We have one of those false dawn clocks.   It begins emitting a relaxed glowing light about 35 minutes before you actually have to wake up.  The glow eventually gets brighter and brighter and then the tweeting bird sounds go off.  (I’m not even kidding.)  This morning? No glowing light.  No tweeting birds.

“David.”  I shake his shoulder.  “David. Love.  It’s 7:17.”

He sits bolt upright in bed, wild-eyed.  “What the?!?”

“You didn’t set your alarm love.”

“Hey I know, I didn’t set my alarm.”  He’s blinking up at me – a dazed, bed-headed owlet.

“You have to thank Minuit, she was our alarm.”

Minuit is standing in the doorway scowling at us.  David exits the bed.  “Thank you Min…”   Perpetually terrified by any motion in the household, Minuit tears across the upper landing before hiding under Rissa’s bed. “…nuit.”

Rissa is in the bathroom getting ready for school.

“Daddy didn’t set his alarm,” I say, yawning while wiping the sleep guck from my eyes.  I grab my toothbrush.  “Minuit’s the hero – she woke us up.”

“I wondered what she was complaining about,” says Rissa.  She looks over at her bedroom doorway where Minuit is now skulking.  “Good job Alarm Cat.”

David, clad in work wear, is doing the Frankenstein shamble to the bathroom.  Minuit immediately bolts back under Rissa’s bed.

Standing in the bathroom doorway, David runs his hands through his hair.  His hair is slightly greasy and up in all directions. “Aw man!  I was supposed to have a shower this morning.” 

I hand him the baby powder.  “You’ll have to powder it up love.”

“Right.”  He dumps about 1/4 of a cup of lavender-scented baby powder into his hand and rubs them together before dragging his hands through his hair.  Rissa and I look at him and look at each other.  David appears to have tripped and fallen into a kilo of coke – powder on his collar, the front of his shirt, under his nose, on his forehead.  His hair is covered.

I head tilt, indicating the faux cocaine fallout zone. “Dude.  You’re Bright Lights Big Citying it.”

“Well I can’t see in the mirror, you girls are taking up all the…  Sweet!  I look like Doc Brown.”

He keeps rubbing the powder through his hair.  I grab a facecloth so that he wipe up the excess from his clothing and face.

“Nothing like Cocaine Thursday,” David says, blending in the last of the power into his hair.

“It’s perfect after Hump Day,” Rissa agrees.