cat

[Kirk Reiser]

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 buck 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 buck 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?"

If they only knew!

Why is it that only the women laugh at this?