The WRONG, WRONG, WRONG Side of the Bed

Wet.

I didn't want to wake up, but I had the brief sensation of wetness on the back of my left arm. As the cat hair covered fog began to lift, I noticed that Spencer was right next to my head, purring loudly. Time to get up and feed him, of course. I glanced at the clock.

OMG. 9:30AM!

I gotta get up, but it felt so good to lie there, but why was my arm damp? I petted Spencer. He was purring louder than a jet engine. I realized it had been so dry lately that perhaps it was bothering his sinuses. Maybe he drooled? Could that be? Spencer has NEVER drooled before. Huh.

I could barely focus. I looked at my arm. Where it felt wet it was a pale brown in color.

BROWN?

BROWN?!!!

BROWN as IN POOP-BROWN?!!!

I sat up, looked at the sheets and saw a watery brown POO puddle. I quickly grabbed Spencer's tail and lifted it. There, below his amazingly pouffy buns was a stringlet of poop, or "pooptailia" as I call it.

Not wanting to be selfish, I woke Sam up to share my "good news". Sam kindly got up, since I was blocked in by Spencer's pooptailia and the shock of starting the day off on the WRONG, oh, so WRONG, side of the bed!

We got Spencer cleaned up, I washed my arm, we stripped the bed and I got the laundry started. I got back into bed. I wanted to re-boot my day. Even without the sheets, the bed had a peculiar magnetic pull on my eyelids. I wanted to go back to the time BEFORE I had cat POOP on my ARM! My ARM!

Sam got up to feed the cats. I was alone. Here comes the train to Sleepytown!

Of course, Spencer immediately jumped onto the bed, practically into my face-mostly poop-free, this time, at least. I sat up, realizing there was NO way I was going to arrive at Sleepytown any time soon and if I didn't lure Mr. Pouffy Pants downstairs, he wouldn't eat his breakfast. Sounds silly, but I think Spencer's a few fries short of a Happy Meal and if I don't go downstairs when he goes, he doesn't eat. So I got up. What else could go wrong, anyway?

If only I had stayed in bed a few minutes longer. If only I hadn't gone downstairs and tried to do the right thing, by herding Spencer to his plate. If only I had cat-like reflexes as I was putting the clean dishes away...

...I wouldn't have knocked a paring knife off the counter, which fell in clichè-slow-motion into MY DELICATE, FRAGILE, NEVER-BEEN-KNIFED-BEFORE PINKY TOE!!!!

Sure, this doesn't LOOK that bad, but it's a deep puncture. So there!

All I could say was; "Shit!, Shit!, Shit!" Not only AS the knife was headed for my toe, during the nanoseconds when I was too stupid to MOVE my foot and I braced for impact, but after the knife tore into my toe. I couldn't move. All I could do was swear. I didn't want to look. It felt like I severed my toe. I looked! I saw blood! The pain was racing through my toes and up my leg. Sam walked into the kitchen, not realizing what had happened-like anyone would realize what happened just seeing me hunched over in pain!

I suppose the toe-terror was a karmic sign. Up until that moment and for the better part of the last week, Sam and I had not been getting along very well. Now we had something to remind us that life is precious and that we would be wise to stop fighting and just love each other. It truly was a miraculous change.

Please tell me you didn't believe that crap. I cut my toe! This is not life and death. Sure, Sam was nice to me, but really now, this is not a cure to fighting, but it WAS nice to have Sam fuss over me, but this was far from, say the Mets winning the World Series again?

So that's it.

Ha ha ha. WRONG!

More misery in a bit...