Abby Li's Dad

For almost six years (1996 to 2002), I sent out a weekly email to my friends. This blog serves as an archive for those emails. The entries starting in May 2006 are my personal reflections on life as a father to Abby, a husband to Melissa, and everything else.

Monday, December 15, 1997

Humor 12/14/97: Cute Little Kitten

Hi everyone,

I hope you're keeing sane during the Christmas season. Everybody seems
to be really busy. I hope that you're able to find a measure of peace.

The following request comes from my friend Alice Chan,

Please inform folks about free books for kids by simply visiting the URL
below and typing a X-mas greeting on the right page...They only have a
few thousand messages so far and for every 25 messages, Houghton Mifflin
donates 1 book to a children's hospital. So please try to jack up those
numbers for the kids.

http://www.polarexpress.com

This week's humor email comes from Dave Shim. I think it is hilarious.
Enjoy!

-Josh.
________________________________________________

Subject: Cute Little Kitten...

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 an
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 head.

In this case, the truth hurt. I mean it really hurt in the placemen
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-machine phobia," 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 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.

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