Tammy Faye Crocker

Another less than sleepful night. I'd already woken twice when, at around 0430, both cats came to awaken me.

They were quite persistent, too. Pawing, nudging, licking, meowing... all to get me awake. Urgently.

I roused myself, and tried to gather my groggy senses. The cats proceeded to jump from the bed and dance in front of the door, darting in and out into the hallway. They wished me to follow them.

Who am I to argue? Cats have claws.

I followed the kitties down the hallway, each of them darting back and forth and snaking back in forth in front of me to ensure I followed. When I reached the end of the hallway, I noticed the kitchen light was on. This was odd, as I had closed the kitchen door after Thomas' last feeding.

Must be M... our late night food raider. I peeked into the girls' room, and lo and behold, M was passed out in her bed.

Now I was concerned. The kitties were still doing their dance. While extremely unlikely on our small base, perhaps we had an uninvited guests. Maybe this was like so many magazine stories, where the pets saved the people from __________. Oh, Lassie, has Timmie fallen down the well, again?

I sneak towards the kitchen, and there I see:

K. This is unusual, as she never gets out of bed, except to go potty, and even then she's near comatose.

She's in there, with the bread out, jelly from the fridge, and peanut butter from a high shelf. And her lunch box... from wherever that had been hidden in storage.

And she's crying. She's in hysterics.

I ask her what she's doing. She, between mournful tears, says she's packing her lunch for school. (K does not take lunch to school; she eats the school lunch. This has always been so, and shall ever be.)

It occurs to me that perhaps she's sleepwalking or some strange such, so I ask her, "Are you awake?" She says she is. ::More crying:: At this point, if she wore mascara, deep lines would be running down her cheeks.

"K, you don't take lunch to school."

"But, I wanna..." Cry, cry, mournful sounds.

This goes on for a minute or two, until I decide it's gone on long enough.

I tell her to go back to bed, which she does, continuing her hysterics and ever increasing risk of dehydration from the sheer volume of tears.

Still no idea of why she was up at 0430, making sandwiches, while bawling her eyes out. It may always be a mystery.