Attack of the Viscous Floor Lamp

Usually our dog, Akela, jumps up on the bed after we stop reading and turn out the lights.  She'll nose her way in between us to lie down.

2 people and 1 dog fit on the bed.

After our cat, Ariel, is sure that the dogs are asleep she will come in and lay down next to my arm on the non-Akela side.

2 people, 1 cat and 1 dog fit on the bed.

Our other dog, Tasha, likes to sleep on her mat at the foot of the bed.  So as long as we all lay relatively still this configuration works.  If you move too much the animals will let you know that this is unacceptable verbally.

Around 3 AM, Tasha must’ve had an active dream chasing a big rabbit.  She knocked over the floor lamp that is in the vicinity of her mat, scared herself silly and went running around.  The ruckus woke me up, so I turned on the overhead light and it was pretty obvious (even at 3 AM) that I just needed to stand the lamp up.  During my 10 seconds out of bed, Tasha had come back into the room and firmly lodged herself into my spot on the bed.  Apparently, as a dog, after you have been through a life or death struggle with a floor lamp, you’re not willing to budge from your spot on the bed.  All my coaxing only got her to move over a little bit -- Tasha would have nothing to do with her mat.  I tried artfully arranging myself between the various animals, but since Akela didn't want to be next to Tasha, she kept nosing me over to the edge of the bed, which left Ariel less room than she liked.  If it had not been 3 AM, I might've been able to come up with a logical solution, but as it was I found out that: 

2 people, 2 dogs and 1 cat do not fit on the bed.

At least the cat was willing to make the sacrifice and sleep elsewhere so I didn't have to sleep on the couch.

This is from an old letter I found today.  I had written it to my mom back in the days when I was married, but when we were down from 2 cats/2 dogs to just 1 cat/2 dogs -- so probably around summer/fall 2003.  Thought it was vaguely funny and since I haven't been too inspired to writing anything, thought I'd post it.