I’m exhausted. Now I know how new parents feel, when you see them moving like zombies and sporting dark circles under their eyes.

No, I don’t have a baby. It’s worse: I have a kitten. The kind that apparently drinks Red Bull instead of its mother’s milk. But you know what makes it even more exciting? The fact that I have to keep said kitten hidden from my three dogs.

I’d always said that I wasn’t ’a cat person’. With my beloved dogs - once four, now three - I’d refuse all offers of a kitten. I didn’t hate cats and I’d certainly play with them if we were around each other, but give me Plug, Play and Yellow any day.

Except for the psychotic Yellow, my dogs are devoted, loving and open. This cat is everything I feared it would be - snotty, ungrateful, born-spoilt, emotionally manipulative and every time she lets me play with her, she bites me. Reminds me a lot of some of my past relationships. Well, except for the ’she’ part’.

And did I mention that the kitten’s mother has also moved in?

Allow me to start from the beginning. Last year sometime, a few cats started trying to move in. They started hanging around the backyard, staring at us, mewing pitifully from time to time.

They mostly kept their distance, mindful of the watchful eyes of the boys (our dogs). We didn’t want to be cruel but we simply couldn’t handle the bacchanal of having both cats and dogs. One in particular persisted. It helped that the boys were gracious towards her, as long as she didn’t push it.

It was a little creepy at first. Though a lovely animal - almost all white with large, luminous grey eyes - in the evening twilight she would take on the appearance of a spectre stalking the property. Every day she came a little closer. Then she started following us, eventually rubbing against our legs and purring. Soon enough, she got what she wanted - food and shelter.

She started getting fed at the same time as the boys and was allowed to move into the tool shed behind the house. Then she started getting fat. Then it became clear we were about to acquire some second-generation immigrants.

Three of them appeared a few months later and for some weeks were confined to the tool shed. Not having much experience with cats, that situation ended in almost complete tragedy. Apparently, the tomcat will sometimes return to kill the young males, sometimes injuring or killing the females in the process.

There was a massacre, the only survivor being my current nemesis. With her personality, I’m not surprised she survived. So she had to be moved into the house, with her mother, and half the house - including my bedroom - is now shut off to house them.

Attempts to off-load her on someone else failed. No one wanted a female cat. I decided I’d deal with it later. In the meantime, I wanted to call her Pleiades (an open cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus).

My mother, who has surprised me with her ardour for the little monster, insisted that she be called Kitty. Wow. I wouldn’t have thought of that.

Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with anything for the other one, who is now answering to Big Cat. Hope that doesn’t stick.

Immediately, they both displayed a sense of entitlement. We were better off when Pleiades alias Kitty was afraid of me. I don’t think anybody appreciates how she terrorises me at night.

First, I came home one evening to find two cats sprawled out, sleeping on my bed (Big Cat’s evil plan all along).

Apparently, when I had told them to ’stay the hell off my bed’, what they heard was, ’your gilded couch awaits, majesties’.

The next day, the incident repeated itself, except this time, my fan had been switched on.

’It was hot in the room,’ my mother explained.

This is my mother, who, for years, has said she doesn’t want ’any damn cats in the yard’.

Nearly a decade ago I brought home a kitten that had been forced on me by a cat-lady friend. It lasted two days. It ended when the kitten managed to claw its way to the top of a curtain and then fall into a plate of food. It might not have been so bad if Mummy wasn’t eating from the plate at the time.

That kitten was promptly returned to the cat-lady.

Now, I come home to find Mummy cooing while fixing blankets and cushions for Kitty, who clearly uses her owlish eyes and insolent, rosebud mouth to manipulate.

But I think the real trouble began when she started climbing. One night, or about 4 am actually, a small noise woke me.

I opened my eyes in time to see a small, fuzzy shape leap from the dresser, towards my head.

My heart stopped in utter fright and I thought, ’Oh God, the gremlins have finally come for me!’

By the time she was about to hit I remembered it was just Kitty, oops Pleiades, and not wanting to have her land on my face with her claws out, I put my arm up. So for about a minute, she used her claws to cling tenaciously to my now-tattered arm.

But she was so soft and small that it was kind of cute. Until her mother, who must weigh at least 20 lb, decided that she too, would jump from the dresser. That was not cute. It took me about 15 minutes to get my wind back after that heifer landed on my stomach.

Now I’ve broken out in red bumps and my editor, Nazma Muller, doesn’t want me to come too close in case I have ’cat fleas’. Thanks, Nazma.

So now, every night, I am tormented by two imps - they jump, they bite, they claw, they yelp. Since we are terrible at disciplining animals, I’m not optimistic that they’re going to behave any time soon.

Kitty has now taken up residence in most of my clothes hampers, so I’m covered in cat and dog hair all time.

Meanwhile, Plug, who once was able to sleep in my room whenever he wished, is highly suspicious. He no longer has access to that part of the house. I smell of cat. He hears mewing.

I keep thinking that one day he’ll just bust through the door and be like, ’Woof woof bark?!’, which means, ’What the doozy is going on in here?!’

I’ve been extra-nice to him to make up for it. The worse part is that itchy red bumps and racoon eyes aside, I am now completely enamoured of the mischievous little furball.

What is it with me and being treated badly? It makes my day when she deigns to let me scratch her tummy. And it serves me right because I’m always warning people to be careful what they wish for. I’d asked for help in waking up in the morning, since I’d sleep all day if given the chance.

And instead of a really good alarm clock, He sends me a couple of hyper-active cats. Maybe that’ll teach me to read the fine print next time.