Another reason not to own a cat...
Calling in Sick....A Cat Owner's Story
Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable because no matter how
legitimate my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I am lying. On
one occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway because the truth
was to humiliating to reveal. I simply mentioned that I had sustained
a head injury and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day.
By then, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown.
In this case, the truth hurt. I mean it really hurt in the place men
feel the most pain. The accident occurred mainly because I conceded
to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. As the daily
routine prescribes, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I
heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. "Ed!" she
hearkened. "The garbage disposal is dead. Come reset it." "You know
where the button is." I protested through the shower (pitter-patter).
"Reset it yourself!" "I am scared!" She pleaded. "What if it starts
going and sucks me in?" Pause. "C'mon, it'll only take a second." No
logical assurance about how a disposal can't start itself will calm
the fears of a person who suffers from "Big-ol-scary-machinephobia," a
condition brought on by watching too many Stephen King movies. It is
futile to argue or explain, kind of like telling Ted Kennedy
Americans are over-taxed. And if a poltergeist did, in fact, possess
the disposal, and she was ground into round, I'd have to live with
that the rest of my life. So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked,
hoping to make a statement about how her cowardly behavior was not
without consequence but it was I who would suffer. I crouched down
and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last
action I remember performing. It struck without warning, without
respect to my circumstances. Nay, it wasn't a hexed disposal, drawing
me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, clawing
playfully at the dangling objects she spied between my legs. She
("Buttons" aka "the Grater") had been poised around the corner and
stalked me as I took the bait under the sink. At precisely the second
I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and
snagged them with her needle-like claws. Now when men feel pain or
even sense danger anywhere close to their masculine region, they lose
all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements.
Instinctively, their nerves compel the body to contort inwardly, while
rising upwardly at a violent rate of speed. Not even a well trained
monk could calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a
kitten and rectify the situation in a step-by-step procedure. Wild
animals are sometimes faced with a "fight or flight" syndrome; men, in
this predicament, choose only the "flight" option. Fleeing straight
up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels when it is alarmed. It was
a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great heights to escape, I
never made it that far. The sink and cabinet bluntly impeded my
ascent; the impact knocked me out cold. When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to conduct their work while
suppressing their hysterical laughter. My wife told me I should be
flattered. At the office, colleagues tried to coax an explanation out
of me. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk. "What's
the matter, cat got your tongue?"
If they had only known. |
