The Stages of Annoyance

Disclaimer: This post is in total jest.

I love Isabella, and she seems to love me. However, it’s very hard not to interpret her expressions or even to laugh at some of them. She is probably more full of expressions than any cat I’ve ever had. When she knows I’m about to leave my apartment, usually because I’m getting out of the shower and that means I’m probably going somewhere, she looks up at me with total adoration. She purrs and “talks” to me. She also has that look when I come home. While many cats show annoyance when you come home after you’ve been away (my previous cat did that), Isabella can’t seem to get enough of me when I come home. Eventually, she’ll settle down and usually go to sleep. Most of her expressions, though, show when I have displeased her. If you’ve ever owned a cat, you know the stages of annoyance, even if it’s the way they move their ears or they way they bite or scratch you, which Isabella can be guilty of at times, but mostly, she really is a very loving cat.

Isabella’s Stages of Annoyance

Stage 1: Opens her eyes just enough to see what’s going on.

Stage 2: “What do you want? You woke me up, it had better be important.”

Stage 3: “Okay, okay, I’m awake now. If you don’t want anything, I’ll go back to sleep.”

Stage 4: The warning, “You may not live through the night for this insolence.”

Stage 5: The final stage is always more sleep.

And, yes, sometimes, she just act like a crazy creature. She gets that look in her eyes that says, “I’m crazy.” Sometimes, she even still chases her tail. While we’ll never know what our pets are thinking, the expressions they make can be quite fun to try and figure out what’s going through their little brains.