Once again, I shall tell a tale of my beloved Archie. For Archie so loved his momma - that would be me! - and all things associated with said me, that he allowed me to swaddle him in my worn pyjamas and other clothes. (Yes, by 'worn' I mean 'stuff I've worn'; most people would just say, 'dirty', but I couldn't bring myself to put that sentence together; it just sounded so creepy.)
But with cats, as it is with dogs, it's all about the smell. That's how they recognize stuff, greet each other, find out what the others have been eating, decide whether or not something is safe to eat, figure out who's been in the box last or who's been sleeping in their bed, etc. All the cats love to sleep on stuff that has their or our smell on it. They sleep in the dirty laundry basket bc the clothes have our smell on them. They sleep in the clean laundry basket to put their smell on the clothes. Basically, I'm trying to justify wrapping my favorite kitty up in my dirty clothes: I did it for him.
Well, I don't know if he actively liked being swaddled in my clothes. I think he would have been just as happy, perhaps happier, being left to lay on my clothes as he saw fit. Every day, almost without fail, I would make the bed and lay my dirty pyjamas on it. And every day, almost without fail, Archie would come up to the bed to commence his daytime nap and, as soon as I put those dirty jammies out there, he'd make a beeline for them and settle down to snooze. He preferred to snooze up against my pillow, so I'd lay them on the bed just so, and he could lay on my clothes and still rest his little head on my pillow.
Every night, almost without fail, I would get into bed and lay my dirty clothes, uh, wherever. And every night, almost without fail, Archie would commence his nighttime nap by settling down onto my dirty clothes. Eventually, he would make his way onto the bed to snuggle with the real thing (me) and not just my smell in my clothes, but that's how he started out his nightly slumber.
I must a
dmit that I took advantage of his olfactory interest in all things me. I've always had, and still have, this desire to dress up my cats, or at least one of them. Well, I've never dressed up any of them, other than Nosey's Christmas cravat. But I have, as you can see in these pictures, taken advantage of Archie's good nature and appreciation of eau de moi. When he'd settle onto my pyjamas or clothes, sometimes I'd wrap them around him and tuck him in like a little baby.
He humored me, for the most part. He'd stay like that for a while; I imagine it felt cozy and warm and, as we all know, cats dig cozy and warm. Sometimes he'd stay like that all through his nap. Sometimes he'd need to get up for a spell, thereby destroying the arrangement. Other times he probably got too warm and shrugged off his wrappings.
I haven't gotten any other cat used to this...pasttime. Sure, they sleep on our dirty clothes, but they're not big on being swaddled in them. Forget the girls; they're too high-strung. Smudgie's a worrywart; it kinda unnerves him. Nosey...well, he sleeps pretty deeply sometimes. I could probably pull a fast one on him. But that would be sneaky, possibly even indecent or morally wrong, taking advantage of him in his reduced state. When I swaddled Archie, he knew what was going on and he went along with it; I swear it was consensual. Of course, I never swaddled him when he wasn't up for swaddling. You don't swaddle a kitty when he's eating or looking out the window at a nice, juicy squirrel or anything other than when he's ready for one of his naps. One wants to be decent about these things.
As mentioned, I did buy a Christmas cravat for Nosey. I will see if I can get a picture of him wearing it for this post.
Comments