Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, 
and the lesson afterward.

LadyHawke
*~*~*~*~*~*

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 too 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 dozy 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 Lloyd Bentsen 
telling Americans they 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.