>From: Asmodeus

>Subject: If I needed a reason
>
>*NOT* to get a cat, other than my allergies, and not being at all
>fond of them, this would be it:
>
>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 doozey 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 behavior
>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?"