I hope I’m not a vindictive, petty person. But I have to admit the one time I deliberately took revenge was marvelous. First, you have to know that I truly, passionately hate getting up in the morning before I’m ready. If you have a heart attack in the morning, don’t call me. I will want to know how serious the attack is before I decide whether I want to wake up enough to drive you to the hospital. In fact, with morning brain, I’ll probably reason that if you are alert enough to call me, you’re probably able to drive yourself — let me know how you are in a few hours. My employer thinks they pay me for work. No. I’d be willing to do the actual work for free. They’re paying me for the torment the metamorphosis from a zombie into a living person causes me. It is not a pretty process.

I mention this because a while back, my cat, Tigger the Love Sponge, suddenly began thinking that he needed to be invited up onto the bed in the morning. I don’t know where he got this idea. He thinks (correctly) that he is “Lord of the Manor” and that all things in it, including our bodies, are his own. But he would sit pitifully on the floor crying and yowling while the two of us called for him to come on up (something he can easily do). Eventually, he’d come and then snuggle up and purr, thus earning daily forgiveness.

Now, he’s even worse. He feels the need to announce his presence, and all of his grievances (and there are many) before, during and after he jumps on the bed, then he doesn’t even bother to snuggle. He simply shoves Dave out and then sprawls out on his side ignoring me completely. Later, he will go to the official living room snuggle spot and yell for me to drop flat on my stomach and love him. I do this because he’s irresistibly cute (when he’s not shrieking) and also because I know from traumatic experience, that he is capable of yowling full blast for 14 hours straight. I swear, the only reason we haven’t had cat steak for dinner is that he wouldn’t be a lean cut of meat. (Incidentally we’ve taken him to more than one costly vet appointment to be sure he’s OK. He’s fine. He has added these visits to his list of complaints).

But at least there was one time when he got what he deserved. We had offered to babysit our daughter’s 8-month-old kitten, Toby. We figured that Toby could live downstairs and Tigger upstairs if they didn’t get along. They were cats. Of course, they didn’t get along. So we kept them separated, no big deal. One morning, Tigger had come in earlier and been even more obnoxious than usual. While I staggered around sleep deprived and resentful, he was blissfully sacked out snoring on our bed. There is no creature on earth that can look more comfortable than a cat. I glared at him and went down to feed and play with Toby. On my way back upstairs, Toby slipped away. I could have caught him, but I was suddenly seized with a wicked spirit of revenge. I simply let him go. As I knew he would, he hopped up on the bed directly on top of Tigger. Yanked suddenly from his blissful catnip dreams, Tigger was every bit as unhappy as I am when he gets me up. He got clumsily to his feet, hair standing up, fully awake now, and growling. I reveled in his suffering. Of course, I rescued Toby before Tigger could kill him. But when I came back upstairs, I put my feet up and thoroughly enjoyed watching Tig irritably stomp around unable to relax and get back to sleep.

Yes, it was a childish and petty revenge. It was beneath me. But I feel no guilt. After all, Tigger feels no guilt. Fair is fair.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s Student Success Center.

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