Daylight Savings Time is supposed to mean an extra hour’s sleep, right? Not in my house.

You see, I’m blessed with a wonderful four-legged alarm clock named Theo. Theo is great at making sure that I never oversleep on work days, or on weekends for that matter. Every morning, at around 5:45 am, Theo makes sure I’m awake and filling his food dish. Usually, this is painless. He’ll sit on my bed and meow until I’m fully awake and can no longer ignore him. Occasionally, though, he’ll play “attack of the Serengeti lion”, and ambush his sleeping “prey”. This is not so painless, and I have the scars to prove it.

The problem is, cats don’t “get” Daylight Savings Time and that whole extra hour’s sleep thing, at least not right away. Theo definitely doesn’t.

It started this morning at the ungodly hour of 3:45 am. This is early, even by Theo’s standards. I awoke to plaintive hunger cries, and the pitter patter of not-so-little feet walking across my rib cage. So, I got up and filled the food bowl, and went back to bed for a few hours’ more sleep. Or so I thought.

Fifteen minutes later, Theo’s back and wanting attention. I pulled the covers over my head and played dead in the hopes that he’d get bored and find something else to amuse himself with. Fat chance! The next thing I knew, I was experiencing the sensation of feline teeth against the human skull. Fortunately for me, I have a thick skull, or so my mother always used to tell me. Otherwise, I’d be walking around with a hole in my head today. Needless to say, Theo found himself suddenly banished from the bedroom.

Did it stop there??? Of course not! Once the initial shock of finding himself on the other side of the bedroom door wore off, Theo spent the NEXT half hour alternating between trying to open the door, and rather loudly begging to be let in.

So much for an extra hour’s sleep!