Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 11:41:48 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Amusing story: cat scratch fever (fwd)

I don't know if you guys saw this, but here ya go:

Probably would happen to me... but then again somehow ReTodd would be 
involved:

-Crazy Larry
 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: FW: Nar Count

:
: Talk about cat scratch fever !  forwards from kitty-lovers removed  
:
: Too Absurd Not to be True
:
: 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 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 Lloyd Bentsen
: 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 onlythe
: "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
: heightsto 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.