Last night was one of those nights when, apparently, the pets felt they needed more attention than we needed sleep.

It all started at about 11 when I heard Max out in the kitchen slurping from his water bowl. There is no such thing as a quiet drink of water when it comes to our dog. It’s loud enough to wake me up, which it did. The first thing that came to my mind was that he’ll need to go out for a pee sometime during the night. Sure enough, a couple of hours later I heard him walking around the bedroom. First, he came to my side of the bed. I was awake, but pretended I wasn’t. Then he went around to my wife’s side of the bed. It wasn’t long before I heard my wife get up and head to the back door to let Max out to do his business. I was very proud of myself. The old “pretend to be asleep” act actually worked! If you’re scoring at home, that’s Lewis 1…Mrs. Lewis 0.

Less than half an hour after that I heard the unmistakable sound of our cat throwing up. Oh great. My pretending to be asleep act didn’t work this time. My wife didn’t budge, although I was pretty sure she heard the same thing. So, I ended up getting out of bed to go and investigate.

I walked into the kitchen and didn’t see any barf at all, so I moved into the dining room. I saw the cat in the living room, so I knew I was getting closer. As a matter of fact, I got a little too close. I took one step too many and landed right in the middle of his barf with my right foot. I retreated into the kitchen to wipe the bottom of my foot off and grab some paper towels and a wet rag.

By the time I had it all cleaned up and was back in bed, it was nearly 1:30. My wife asked, “Did the cat throw up?” Obviously she heard it, but had pulled the same “pretending to be asleep” trick that I had just pulled on her 30 minutes earlier.

The score was now Lewis 1  Mrs. Lewis 1

The night ended up in a stalemate and I drifted off until my alarm went off at 2:20.

When I get home today I’ll have to lay the law down with our pets. I’ll just have to tell them, plain and simple, “Max, no more peeing in the middle of the night and Charlie, no more throwing up in the middle of the night.”

If they follow those simple rules, maybe my wife and I can have a sleep-filled night!