Cats are the darlings of the internet. They have toe beans. They boop things with their paws. They snuggle with you. They do the darndest things when surprised with cucumbers. If your only source was the internet, you might think cat ownership was a walk in the park. This is not the case. Cat ownership is a hellscape that is very difficult to exit once you’ve entered it. You get sucked in by the cute face, soft fur, and sweet little meows. Then, by the time you realize what you’ve really invited into your home, you’re doomed. It’s too late for me. But in case anyone out there thinks they’ll get lucky and win the cat lottery, I’m going to explain what cat ownership is like.

The day begins whenever your furry Satan spawn decides it does. Sometimes this is at a reasonable hour, and your feline foe wakes you up by climbing on top of you and liberally applying its claws to your unprotected flesh. You will scream. You will cry. You will curse the day you were born. But unfortunately for you, it could be worse. Worse is when the creature you spared from a life of misery decides to make your life miserable by perching on the end of the bed and meowing at five-second intervals at three in the morning. No ceasing. No variation of the sound. Just the same meow over and over again. You can try to chase it off the bed or kick it out of your room, but there is no escape. No matter what you do, you’ve been forced to leave the bed, and the hellbeast has won the day’s first battle.

Try to go about your day to day activities. You’ll find them difficult with the cat constantly getting underfoot. They seem to have a radar for when you’re carrying something fragile and/or heavy, and they make it their life’s mission to make you drop whatever it is. Should you step on them, they’ll act like the aggrieved party, and because they’re cute in spite of the evil within, you’ll fall for it. You’ll pet them, offer them food, agree to play with them. They may accept these offerings. They may not. But either way, you’ll end up feeling like the bad guy.

Should you leave the house, anxiety will plague you. You will wonder what the cat is up to. You’ll wonder if it’s bored. If it’s lonely. If it misses you. Or, if you’re a realist, you’ll wonder what sort of mischief it’s getting up to while you’re not there to chase it away with a spray bottle. If you return to your home and find it intact, you’ll be lured into a false sense of security, and the next time destruction occurs, you’ll be caught unawares. If you discover a disaster area where your living room once was, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you were right and go about cleaning up the wreckage.

Darkness falls, and at some point, you decide to sleep. Not so your cat. The domestic feline, like most of its wild brethren, is nocturnal, which means that as you’re settling down to rest, your cat will be tearing around the house like a lunatic, keeping you awake at best and destroying the house you just got back in working order at worst. Finally, you’ll fall into an exhausted slumber – at least until your furry devil decides it’s time to wake up again.