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Authors Note:
This is in honor of a new fuzzy little bundle of joy recently adopted into our family. Reading a short little joke made me think of this story too. Why did I write it? Couldn’t think of what to type for Saturday’s Happenings, that’s why. Oh, and I have nothing personal against Gohan. He just happens to be my favorite and therefore gets stuck with the role.
Calling in sick makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitament my illness, I always sense my boss thinks I am lying. On one occasion, I had a very valid reason, but lied anyway because the truth was to humiliating. I only mentioned that I had received a head injury and hoped I would feel up to coming the next day. By then I could think up a dozy to explain the damage to my crown.
The accident happened mainly because I conceded to my wife’s wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. Initially the new acquisition was no problem, but one morning I was taking a shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Videl, call out to me from the kitchen. "Gohan! The garbage disposal is dead, come reset it."
"You know where the button is." I protested with water pitter-pattering all around. "Reset it yourself!"
"I am scared!" she pleaded. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?"
Well, if THAT wasn’t a surprise. Videl, afraid of the garbage disposal? I gave the shower wall an incredulous look. "C’mon," she yelled. "It will only take a second."
So out I came, dripping wet and buck-naked, hoping to make a statement about how her cowardly behavior was not without consequence.
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 for my circumstances. No, it wasn’t the hexed garbage disposal drawing me into its gnashing metal jaws. It was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects she spied between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait beneath the sink.
At precisely the second when 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 them to contort their body inwardly, while rising upward at a violent speed. Not even a well-trained monk would calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a step by step manner.
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. The sink cabinet bluntly impeded my assent (and shattered in the process); 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 hysterical laughter.
At the office and amongst family, people tried to coax an explanation out of me. I kept silent claiming it was to painful a story to tell. That was when Krillen asked, "What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?"
If only he had known.
