jingle all the way.

I’ve said this before: Miles seems to be a pretty smart cat.

I think I’ve also said this before: Miles is definitely a persistent cat.

Miles thinks his breakfast should be served, at the latest, at 6 a.m. He may start asking for breakfast earlier — sometimes as early as 4 — but if we haven’t started moving by 6, he’s usually ready to turn up the heat. That can include jumping on and off the bed, touching our faces with his paws and LOUD, endless conversations.

On weekdays, that’s usually enough, because Mrs. Crappy has to get up and get ready for work. On weekends, when we’re bent on sleeping in a little bit, he may have to try something else.

That’s when he’s especially ingenious. He does a fantastic job of finding something so annoying that we pretty much can’t ignore him and then does it until we have no choice but to get out of bed. His favorite? Finding a plastic grocery bag and rustling it until one of us gets up.

On Sunday, our genius cat found something new. Remember The Hat? It has bells. Lots of them. Miles found The Hat, on top of the stuff we unloaded when we got home late Saturday. I knew this because I heard the bells, tentatively at first.

Jingle. Silence. Jinglejingle. Silence. Jingle. Silence. It was hard not to laugh.

After a few jingles didn’t produce a reaction, he went for it all — he knocked over the box The Hat is stored in, making our bedroom sound like a freaking Christmas song.

He got his breakfast. And The Hat got a new storage space — up on a shelf, where our persistent cat cannot reach it.