We've all had trouble with our animals, but I don't think anyone can top
this one:
Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate
my excuse, I always get the feeling that my boss thinks I'm lying.
On one recent occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth
was just too darned humiliating. 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 reasoned, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on the top of
my head. The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife's
wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. Initially, the new acquisition was
no problem.
Then one morning, I was taking my
shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the
kitchen.
"Honey! The garbage disposal is dead again. Please come reset
it."
"You know where the button is," I protested through the shower
pitter-patter and steam. "Reset it yourself!"
"But I'm scared!" she persisted. "What if it starts going
and sucks me in?"
There was a meaningful pause and
then, "C'mon, it'll only take you a second."
So out I came, dripping wet and butt naked, hoping that my silent outraged
nudity would make a statement about how I perceived her behaviour as extremely
cowardly.
Sighing loudly, I squatted down and stuck my head under the sink to find the
button. It is the last action I remember performing.
It struck without warning, and without any respect to my circumstances.
No, it wasn't the hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal
teeth. It was our new kitty, who discovered the fascinating dangling
objects she spied hanging between my legs. She had been poised around the
corner and stalked me as I reached under the sink. And, at the precise
moment when I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered
and snagged them with her needle-like claws. I lost all rational thought
to control orderly bodily movements, blindly rising at a violent rate of speed,
with the full weight of a kitten hanging from my masculine region.
Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "fight or flight" syndrome.
Men, in this predicament, choose only the "flight" option. I
know this from experience. I was fleeing straight up into the air when
the sink and cabinet bluntly and forcefully impeded my ascent. The impact
knocked me out cold.
When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me.
Now there are not many things in
this life worse than finding oneself lying on the kitchen floor butt naked in
front of a group of "been-there, done-that"
paramedics. Even worse, having been fully briefed by my wife, the
paramedics were all snorting loudly as they tried to conduct their work, all
the while trying to suppress their hysterical laughter......and not succeeding.
Somehow I lived through it all. A few days later I finally made it back
in to the office, where colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me about
my head injury. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about,
which it was.
"What's the matter?" They all asked, "Cat got your
tongue?"
