Oh Hey! I Didn't See You There.

Emily is rarely surprised. While deep in sleep the other day, she was startled to find someone LOOKING at her! Did she react in a panic? Jump up and run away. Yowl and cry? No. She handled it with her typical aplomb, gazing calmly back at the camera wearing a lightly quizzical expression. After the incident, I interviewed Emily about how she managed to quell her basic feline instincts and present such a dignified front. She gave me the exclusive details on her 5 step method.

1. Hearing/feeling something you did not expect.
This is how it always begins. Something you didn't think was going to happen is happening and OH MY GOD IT IS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!!! This is the event that starts it all. If you do not immediately feel something touching you, then you can roll with it. If something is touching you, you can skip the next four steps and just go to straight freak out mode. Claws and all. If nothing is touching you then...

2. Investigate what is happening.
Great, nothing is touching you. Win one for you. Now whatever is happening that you did not expect is likely going on behind you. Now is the time for you to turn and use your eye-skills to ascertain what, precisely, is going on. If what is going on is a yelling person or something threatening looking, you can skip the next three steps and go to straight freak out mode. Claws and all. If it is not a yelling person or something threatening looking then...

3. Look at it a lot.
Hooray! No one is yelling at you and nothing is threatening you. This day just keeps getting better. (An essential part of this whole process is maintaining a positive attitude -- celebrate the mini-victories along the way and your calm demeanor will only be reinforced.) Since whatever surprised you is not a bad thing, you can now just look at it a lot until you figure out what it is. If you figure out what it is and that thing that it is is something bad -- you know the drill. You can skip the next two steps and just go totally bonkers at it. If it is not a bad thing then...

4. Keep looking at it a lot.
Sometimes not bad things are hard to figure out, especially if you just woke up. Is it a friend coming by for an unexpected visit? Any and all of these things are possible, but it will take a lot of looking to figure that out.  If it is a nefarious hidden bad thing masquerading as a good thing (this does sometimes happen) and it took this much looking to understand that, skip the next step and JUST GO NUTS!!!

5. Go back to what you were doing.
Yes, you have figured out that you are in no danger and that whatever startled you was just a mild interruption to your already scheduled plans. You can return to them content in the knowledge that you have kept your composure while assessing your surroundings. You are a hero! Reward yourself by doing whatever it was you were doing before you stopped doing that thing to look at the surprising event.

Thanks for that advice Emily! Now, to see her put this into action, check out the video below: