45 Pounds of Cat and an Air Mattress

[behindbj]

Sounds like a new band...

My futon died.  Actually, it compressed under the weight of my fine self over time, so it became like sleeping flat on the floor.

Sooooo - I went downstairs and dragged up the ol' air mattress until I can replace my bed.

My cats have never seen an air mattress.  If you want to clear a room of any and all cats, turn on an electric air pump.  I even had the added bonus of two of them tryng to fit through the cat door at the same time.

I made it up to look like a bed, with sheets and stuff (it is the same size as my dear departed futon).  When the pump went off and the sheets went on, the cats went onto the bed.  It took me forever to calm down because of the looks on their faces when I sat down and maneuvered on the bed.   They aren't used to the mattress moving around.  So, I laughed myself silly.

For the first couple of nights, they tried sleeping on different areas of the bed to see if the motion could be avoided (and the odd squishyness of the air mattress as the night wore on (it's a cheap one for emergencies so it loses some air overnight)).

So after two nights of giving me the giggles as they tried to get comfortabe on the air mattress, I wake up this morning to find they had found the perfect, solid location.

I woke up with 45 pounds of cat unceremoniously draped over me, snoring away.

Anyone out there have a waterbed story?

behindbj

[kathrynne]

I wake up that way every morning! One kitty on my legs, another above my head and the third in a perfect "meatloaf" on my chest--unfortunately with the wrong end in my face. I keep turning him around (this is "Leadfoot," who leaves paw-sized bruises all over us at night), and he keeps insisting that his butt smells heavenly.

I had a waterbed for about a decade, along with four cats. I used two mattress pads so the claws wouldn't be a problem, and it worked quite well. Until (knew this was coming, right?) ...

My idiot roommate* decides to do me a "favor" and change the bedding for me. He removes everything from the bed and leaves it nekkid for the day. I come home to discover that the cats have been chasing air bubbles in the mattress and I have tiny pinprick holes EVERYWHERE. Had it been one or two punctures I might've tried patching it, but we're talking four playful kitties with 10 unsupervised hours to kill those bubbles.

More recently I tried a "Chillow," that water-filled pillow that's supposed to help keep you cool at night. It didn't make it a single night before I woke up in a puddle. It seems I'd been petting the "over the head" kitty in my sleep, causing him to make biscuits on my pillow. Now there's a failed experiment.

My brother had a chow that got one heckuva a surprise one day. He'd been sleeping on my brother's waterbed for years, but one day when the dog leaped up the waterbed mattress must have hit its limit. It exploded/collapsed, all at once, and the poor baffled dog found himself standing knee-deep in a bedpuddle that had splashed all over the room.

Before I get flamed for referring to the roommate who wrecked the waterbed as an idiot, I'd like to point out that at one point I bought an expensive unframed limited edition print and was waiting for the frame to come in. Roomie managed to knock it onto the floor in front of a window when he opened the window and neither closed the window nor moved my print when a thunderstorm started later, soaking the print. When I got home and discovered this situation, his reason for leaving it to soak was, "I didn't want to get wet."

Some people. @@@

[VorFemme]

I made it up to look like a bed, with sheets and stuff (it is the same size as my dear departed futon).  When the pump went off and the sheets went on, the cats went onto the bed.  It took me forever to calm down because of the looks on their faces when I sat down and maneuvered on the bed.   They aren't used to the mattress moving around.  So, I laughed myself silly.

I slept on an air mattress after the furniture left for the new house - the cat stayed with me (I didn't want to get TOO lonely!) - one night she chased something under the mattress.....the next morning, early, VERY EARLY, I woke up sleeping on the floor..........

I was supposed to work at the base thrift store that day, as a volunteer.  I went in thinking about the futon there on consignment - mainly how to get it home (wood frame).

It sold.........but behind it was a black metal framed futon, similar to the one WalMart sells, which was marked 1/3 the price of the wooden futon.  Mattress included.........

I started to walk it back to the volunteer area so that I could buy it at the end of the shift.  Another volunteer wanted to arm wrestle me for who got to buy it.........she wanted to know if I needed it more than she did.  She had grandkids who stayed the night once in a while who needed a place to sleep.

I told her that I planned to sleep on it that night...........she asked me to let her know when I sold the house, so she could buy it from me (she did, too).

It was a very thin mattress..........I bought another futon mattress the next day.  Two futon mattresses are very comfortable, BehindBJ.  And, unlike air mattresses, if a cat has an unfortunate accident with their claws - the mattress stays comfortable.................

There are times when I almost miss that futon - it was very cozy for several months (took forever to sell the house).  I even found a five dollar bedspread in the thrift shop that had a print that coordinated with the carpet and window treatment in that room - made the house look nicer when I was showing it.

But I digress.............

[Yarnspinner]

bj--

I don't know if this counts.  Because I have sleep apnea I'm stuck with a c-pap machine that drives me out of my mind.  When I DO use it, the noise keeps me awake (the air leaking out of the mask that goes over my nose and mouth) or wakes me up once I fall asleep.  Consequently, when I wear it, I wear it only for short periods of time. 

One night, however, I fell right off to sleep and go through the whole night....until early morning.  Around five a.m. I feel 12 pounds of cat move onto my belly.  This isn't too bad.  Kitty Such doesn't present a breathing problem when she's on my belly. 

However, I wasn't waking up fast enough to feed/pet/compliment her litter box offerings.  I went right on sleeping.  But that ended soon enough.  All of a sudden the air stopped coming into my mask and I woke up--to find my sweet, dear, malevolent little kitty sitting beside me with her paws carefully covering all the air holes in the mask.

If the cat had an opposable thumb, I swear I would be redundant.

[kathrynne]

Oh dear! I'm reminded of another mattress story.

I had a puppy for a while in college, before another idiot roommate took him for a walk without a leash and lost him (I searched for ages, with no luck). Before being lost Yossarian chewed a huge hole in the box spring of my mattress set. Nothing to be done about it, I just kept using the bed.

Sometime later another roommate had a cat who'd had kittens. At the time Mom brought a friend to help move me home for the summer, the kittens were about five weeks old--and loved playing in my boxspring. Mom and Bettye were trying to sleep when they felt movement in the mattress and started freaking out. "CRUD MONKEYS!! She's got RATS!" They came running out to the livingroom where I was packing, and I about fell over laughing before turning on the bedroom light and calling the kittens out of the mattress.

The next day I reminded everyone to please check the box spring for kittens before picking it up to move it.

[Clara Bow]

My cat like to pounce the bubble that floats around our waterbed. She also like to jump around and then let the bed wave her up and down.
We have to be careful though because she kept clawing holes in it. We had her declawed and the little booger started chewing holes in it. Only when the sheets are off though...

[BettyP]

I don't have a waterbed story, but I do have one concerning The Beast...

Four years ago, I was resembling Shamu as the Wee Child was cooking. The Beast, all twenty-two pounds, was none too pleased at this point in time. My parents were living with us in our two bedroom (four rooms total) apartment at the time and had brought their Persian -- The Beast wanted nothing more than to eat the interloper, so he was feeling cranky from being denied. LOL I had settled into the recliner to try and get comfortable. The Beast decided to avail himself of my lap, only to find that said lap was much smaller than he remembered. Finally, after much poking and prodding of my large belly, he draped himself over me and settled in. Suddenly, Wee Child (who had a sense of evil humour in the womb) kicked me precisely where The Beast had laid his head. The poor cat was SO offended, I started laughing. Unfortunately, when that much bulk shifts in a recliner, bad things happen. The recliner closed and The Beast got throw from my belly. I didn't see him for the rest of the night. He did make his displeasure known by secreting various small objects in his cat box.

AnnaB