Morning Exercises:
Informal Gomez
Formal Gomez
The Journal of Hairy Friends
For Mr. Gomez, getting into the garden early in the morning was a complex procedure. Mr. G needed his human to unlock and open the kitchen door, and getting him up and out of bed early enough sometimes posed a problem. The most effective method for waking up humans involved Gomez and a series of organized gestures. First, he jumped onto the bed causing just the right amount of mattress rebound - too little, and human sleep was not interrupted - too much, and wake-up came too soon. The correct amount of mattress shaking was a slight ripple. Next, after years of experimentation, Gomez had established that Optimum Feline Placement, or OFP, next to his human’s head, was about twelve inches - positioned too far away, and his ability to direct moist fishy cat breath into the human face was ineffectual, too close, and he didn’t have adequate room for the degree of torque necessary to place his snout at exactly the precise angle. When OFP was achieved, Gomez began the rhythmic exhalation of cat breath sustained for two to three minutes. If the initial mattress ripple had been successful and less REM resulted, then cat breath usually evoked a groan or body movement from the human.
Once Gomez had elicited the latter response, another wait of four minutes was essential or the human reaction might be too extreme and lead to catricide. When all groans had subsided, the Feline Paw Manoeuver could be utilized. The FPM was perhaps the most delicate of the previous wake-up gestures. It had been developed in Hungary in the 1890s by the eminent tabby, Bela Chatosy, as the most efficient way to wake up a human and still have time to execute a fast retreat. When correctly implemented, the FPM requires a cat to lift his dominant paw and gently brush it across a human cheek. It is not advisable to brush more than once every twenty-five seconds, since a delay is necessary to make a successful getaway if the human wakes up(furious). Chatosy recommended that twenty-five seconds was sufficient time for an average cat to leap off the bed and run and hide, but advised that an additional five seconds should be added every two years to compensate for aging feline reflexes. Mr. G brushed three times: before he elicited a response consisting of the opening of one human eye followed by a loud noise. Using twelve of his twenty-five-second safety allotment, he could jump off the bed, get through the bedroom door and hide around the corner. Phase I of the morning wakeup had been achieved successfully, and it was important that the time lapse between the two phases not be too long, because of the risk of his human slipping into REM sleep again. Positioned accurately, where he could be heard but not seen, Mr.G began to meow using the internationally recognized Feline Volume Level(FVL). The duration of meowing was so variable that no time standards could be established for human response, and humans have been known to react in as little as three seconds or to wait as long as five minutes. In this instance the response time to the FVL was forty seconds, and, as Gomez had anticipated, a projectile was thrown in his direction. Generally, projectiles were shoes or on occasion, bedside reading material, however, in Tigger and Lulu (1965), an instance of flying dentures was noted. The shoe, size 11 B, hit the wall near the bedroom door and bounced onto the floor.
Phase III, undoubtedly the most dangerous part of the morning exercise, involved a Frontal Declaration of Intent(FDI) coupled with the FVL. Generally, this guaranteed action on the part of the human, and in this instance Gomez was not disappointed. Standing in the doorway, three seconds into his FDI-FVL his human leapt out of bed and began a fast and inaccurate descent down the staircase, enabling Mr.G to leap ahead and lead the way to the back door of the kitchen. Having reached the door with his eyes still closed, the human fumbled with the key, and this window of opportunity allowed Gomez to rub lovingly against his human’s legs, to indicate that no inter-species harm was meant, but, “open the door and make it fast buddy”.
This particular morning, because of unpredictable conditions, Gomez decided not to implement the F-HMFG or Feline-Human Mind Fuck Gambit. F-HMFG has been described in the Canadian Journal of Go-Figure-Out-Cats as a situation when a feline changes its mind immediately about something it appears to want. For example, wanting to go out of the door and then immediately wanting to return indoors. This particular morning, after successfully reaching the garden, Mr. G indulged in a few hours of napping, before announcing his desire to go back into the house.
©joanna nash, arundel, qc.