My Cat, The Airplane

Yesterday morning the alarm clock went off and Aaron got out of bed. In typical fashion, I rolled around aimlessly in the blankets unable to understand what was happening. There was noise, the cats were stomping all over me, and Aaron was gone. It was all really confusing. Then Aaron was across the room looking at me like I was a bum for still being in bed. I felt compelled to say something, to prove how awake I was.

"Neelix is like an airplane." Is what I said. I don't know why I said it or what had possibly lead me to make that association to begin with. Neither did Aaron.

His response was, "...What?"

Then I began fumbling around with words, trying to form a coherent explanation as to why my cat was anything like an airplane. It was harder than you'd think. Or maybe not, since my cat is absolutely nothing like an aircraft. "He just is..." I began groggily, "Look at his head!" I was completely certain in myself that this would explain everything.

Neelix.

By this point all attempts at getting dressed have ceased. Aaron stood there holding his shirt, looked to the cat and then back at me, "What are you talking about?"

Then I got defensive because my attempt to seem as awake and ready for the day as he was had failed. I ended up just repeating what I had said before only slower, "Neelix. He is like an airplane. Look at his head." When that clearly wasn't working I didn't give up. Oh no, I continued trying to sleepily justify the comparison. "Look at the way his ears go. Their shape and color. It's like the patterns on airplane wings."

I've never seen an orange airplane before though, so I'm not sure how this line of reasoning was supposed to help my cause. Aaron was laughing at my absurdity now which quickly devolved my argument into, "SHUT UP HE'S AN AIRPLANE." Because obviously he just wasn't going to get it.

There was a moment of amused silence and then we both laughed at my defeat. I crawled out of bed miserably. I must have still been half-dreaming when the conversation started. It was like words were just falling out of my head in some random sequence and the harder I tried to make them make sense, the less sense they made.