Wallis Olivia, Mutated Behavior

My cat Wally and I used to have a certain nighttime ritual of which I was—shall we say?—not so fond. Every night, I would crawl in to bed, turn on the lamp on my night stand, and settle in to read my Bible. Then Wally would come strolling in to the room, jump on the night stand, deposit himself on my alarm clock, and blink at me, purring. It was really cute. The problem was that he would also "knead" his paws. This activity, invariably, reset my alarm or my clock or, if he was especially productive, both. My attempts to shoo him off of the alarm clock (still purring) only encouraged him to rub the side of his face on my lamp shade, the force of which often knocked the alarm clock off of the table. He also was partial (accidentally, or so he claims) to knocking my water glass off the night stand. If he had a good night, he could knock over the water glass, the lamp, and the alarm clock. Water and electricity, oh boy. Because Wally is not often bright enough to connect punishment with bad behavior on his part, attempts to deter this nighttime behavior were not successful. As it turns out, the only effective way to get him to leave the night stand was to turn off the lamp. For some reason, when the lamp went out, he was no longer interested. Perhaps he figured out that if the lamp was out, I was going to sleep and would no longer be available to pet him. Whatever the reason, it worked, and I did not question it. It got to be that when I turned on the lamp, and then he--having heard the lamp go on--came strolling in to the room, I would immediately turn out the lamp. I started reading the Bible by flashlight. After a while, the sound of the lamp going on no longer signaled to Wally an internal urge to sit on my alarm clock. I could turn on my lamp, and he didn't even enter the room! I grew careless with this new power to read by lamplight. I was no longer careful to make sure I turned out the lamp when he came in to the room.

Recently, though, he started jumping on my nightstand again, and then...

You know how if you get sick, and the doctor gives you antibiotics, but you don't finish taking them because hey, you're all better now, right? And then the germ or whatever it was mutates and comes back and makes you twice as sick as before?

Turning out the lamp no longer works. Wally has decided that my getting in bed is the signal to jump on the nightstand. No lamplight needed.

So we're back to the hasty removal of the water glass and the covering of the alarm clock with whatever is handy that might prevent his being able to reset the clock or the alarm or both.