Volume 31🐾 The Pookie Chronicles: Nap Denied, Dignity Delayed

I had carved out a perfect nap nook.
Warm laundry. Freshly folded. The kind that still smells like lavender despair and dryer sheets that cost more than my vet visits. It was time. I curled my magnificent tail around my little meatloaf body and began descending into the sleep of queens.

Three minutes in: chaos.

James—small, unhinged, marshmallow-shaped—exploded into the room riding a dinosaur pool noodle and screaming “I’M A COMET.” My whiskers twitched in protest. My soul left my body.

He crash-landed beside me with a trail of crackers and consequences. “Hi, Pookie,” he whispered, then poked my toe bean like it was a button at NASA.

I moved. With grace. With poise. With ancient feline judgment. To the couch.

Wrong again.

Jack was there, narrating the backstory of a video game villain who apparently “just needed a hug.” Volume: unreasonable. Every time he lost, he muttered “Pookie, this game is RIGGED.” I did not consent to this sidekick role.

Next option: bathroom rug. Fluffy, isolated, sacred.

I closed my eyes. Breathed in tile. And then—the door creaked.

Mom entered. Her eyes locked on me. Her face said, “You’re in my way, Pookie.” Her voice didn’t say it—but her movements did. She tried to step around me. She failed. She apologized. She knocked over a shampoo bottle. I sighed.

Finally, I retreated to my final frontier: the windowsill. Sunbeam. Glory. Solitude.

Three minutes in: Dan walked by eating loud almonds.
The window shook from toddler laughter.
James called from below, “Pookie, are you doing a science?”

I am trying to feel nothing and disappear into light, you feral cherubs.

But alas. I remain. Supervisor. Ghost of naps not taken.
Watching from above like a judge in a reality show called Motherhood: But Sticky.

I will nap when the power grid fails.
Until then, I plot.
Silently. With precision. With fur.

Tonight, I sleep directly across the bed, diagonally, unmovable.
Let them wake with leg cramps.
Let them know my vengeance is velvet-wrapped.

Pookie out.
Try me again, tomorrow. But with quiet.
And smoked salmon.