Just Let Me Sleep!

During the day, Apollo is a reasonable household companion. Even with his incessant demands for more food, he's fairly pleasant to be around all day. But at night, he's one of our worst nightmares. I discovered this very early on, when his “2am Freakout” tendencies started to show a few days after bringing him home, and have occurred every night since then. Apollo acted calm and sweet when I was getting ready for bed, and even curled up on the corner of my blanket. I had no way of knowing I was laying into a trap. I hit the lights, pulled up a blanket, and sprawled out. About 5 minutes later, I felt dagger like claws clinging onto my foot with an impressive vice-like grip, and little kitten teeth gnawing on my ankle, much in the same way a wild hyena gnaws on its prey. Even through the blankets, he managed to leave some battle scars on me. In my semi-groggy state, I tried kicking and squirming, but Apollo just held on for the ride, and somehow managed to stay attached to my limbs, even after gliding through the air in my mad fit to get him off. To fully free myself, I had to wiggle through the blankets while avoiding his little paw spikes, stand up, and wrap Apollo in a blanket so that I could eject him from my room without doing further damage to my arms.

He got launched into the hallway and a door slammed in his face before he could dart inside for round two. Indignant about this injustice against him, he pounded on my door, stuck his paw under the door trying to shake it open, and leaped repeatedly up at the doorknob until he was absolutely certain that he couldn't break in again. Disappointed but not defeated, he marched down the hall to try it on my Brother's closed door, and then downstairs to the open door of my parent's room, much to his excitement. I learned the next morning that he pulled the exact same routine. Act all sweet and innocent, and then go for the kill. And this wasn't just a once every week or so habit for him. This occurred every. Single. Night. Which is how he came to be locked out of my bedroom, every single night, for about a year and a half now.

Even after all this time though, he hasn't forgotten his goal. Every night, it still takes a massive search party to find where Apollo is hiding. He knows when it's getting close to bedtime, and while we're busy getting ready, he plants himself in hiding spots that are incredibly difficult to get him out of, in hopes of being allowed to stay with us overnight. The very center of under the bed, the far back corner of the closet, and hiding stealthily on the windowsill behind the blinds and curtains are all excellent hiding spots for him. We've even tried to let him stay with us about a dozen times, usually out of defeat when we can't possibly hope to reach him in his hangout of the night. And every time, it's ended badly for us. He stays in his hideaway just long enough for us to almost fall asleep, and then he silently emerges, so that the impact of him landing on our feet is enough to send us into shock. Then, groggy, in the dark, and sometimes bleeding, we have to capture the little bugger and hoist him out the door.

Now that we know better than to believe his “innocent eyes,” we try to wrangle him out of the room an hour or so ahead of time, to make the process a bit easier. In turn, Apollo sits directly outside the door so that he can try to sprint inside the instant the door cracks open. And once we go to bed, he stays there. We've got an old box with a blanket in it that has been taken over. The blanket was just there because I couldn't reach the top shelf to put it away, but now it has officially been claimed as his little kitty throne, and I don't want to imagine what kind of payback the kitty will come up with if I take it away now.

Apollo has his cushy little spot to hang out all night, but apparently it's a rough deal for him, because right around 7am, he realizes that he is starving, and that we are doing him a terrible evil by not putting food in his belly right that instant. So he desperately tries to paw and claw his way through the door, and even tries to shake the doorknob by standing up on his hind legs. It's like he knows how that doorknob works, he just can't get his paws around it. He makes this terrible racket for about 5 minutes straight every half hour or so until one of us finally gives in or has to get ready for the day. He charges in when the door opens, screams at us, and prances into the kitchen, looking back every two steps to make sure we haven't wandered off the path from his food dish. Waiting for the food to reach the dish is too long for him, so Apollo tries to eat the food from the falling stream of food as it falls into the bowl. Then he goes to town on the fresh pile of crunchies, and stuffs them into his mouth with such vigor and excitement that he has been nicknamed “The Steamshovel.” And apparently standing up is too much to ask of a little kitty, so half the time he sprawls out on the floor, and pulls the dish towards him, or scoops out a few pieces at a time with his paw, and eats them off of the floor. Honestly, I question every morning how he was so busy all night that he needs food that urgently. But then again, since he's locked out every night, I don't witness his 2am Freakouts, so maybe he really was that active. For all I know, he runs a marathon every night, just sprinting laps and tackling toy mice.

Apollo on one of his lazy mornings.  Note the food scattered all over the floor, which he shoveled out with his paw.  And don't mind the pot behind him...we gave him a wind-up tugboat from the dollar store to poke at.

Kitty's box throne, where he awaits our presence (or just our food) every night