Part One: Awoken by a Cat; Or I Hope My Insurance Doesn't Hear About This

I’m pretty sure I’ve closed my eyes for just a moment.
“Pearl.  Psssst.”
Huh?  What?  I jerk awake.
The cat is sitting on my chest.
Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, symmetrically striped stealer of dreams and small-pawed liberator of earrings, pens, and unattended cash cards peers down at me.  Her eyes narrowed to gleaming slits, she looks as if she’s suppressing a smile.
I move my own eyes to the left, to the right.  The TV is on, murmuring something indistinct about what we may expect in the way of side effects.
I stare up at the cat.
“What,” I say.
“You were snoring.”
I shift slightly, and the cat hangs on to her dignity – and her position as chest-sitter – by extending her claws.
“Why,” she says, “don’t you go to bed?”
“Huh?”  I pull my glasses off, rub the bridge of my nose.  “What time is it?”
The cat raises her left paw, checks the inside of her wrist.  “2:30.”
I sit up, knocking the cat backwards. “What are you talking about,” I say.  I feel, somehow, defensive.  “It can’t be 2:30,” I say.  “I have to work tomorrow.”
The cat jumps to the coffee table.  “What nonsense you talk,” she says dismissively.  “It certainly can be 2:30.”  Liza Bean yawns delicately.
I catch a whiff of something – and wake up just that much more.  “Let me smell your breath,” I say.
The cat covers her mouth with a tiny, larcenous paw, stifles a small smile.  “You have some strange habits, Pearl.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.”
I frown at her, consciously reach up to smooth my brow.
The lousy cat is giving me wrinkles.
“I’m serious,” I say. 
“Oh,” the cat says, laughing.  “I’m sure you are.”
I lean forward, but she is too quick.  Dancing backwards, she evades my grasp.
“Did you take my car again?  You did, didn’t you?!”
Just a week ago, the cat had taken my car, returned it with a full tank of gas – and a half-eaten bucket of bait in the back seat.  At the time, it hadn’t seemed all that important.  I mean, a kitty’s got to eat, am I right?
And a tank of gas – well, you’ve seen the price at the pump.
Still…
“Liza Bean,” I say.  “Did you take my car again?”
The cat smiles, leaps up to the top perch of “cat condo” in the corner of the room. 
“I didn’t,” she said, “but we did.”
I reach back into my sleep-webbed mind.  “Juan Diego…”
Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, nods.  “Juan Diego de la Patas Oro,” she says.
And with that, the cat curls up and closes her eyes.
What?  Why?  Stay tuned!