I was holding this cat, see, and trying to protect it from a dog.
For my trouble, I got my thumb bitten ... by the cat. All because
of one dumb move on my part.
Dumb but useful.
My friend Maureen has two cats and a big, gallumphing Redbone
Coonhound named Quigley, who adores me. Quigley couldn't love
me more if I were a combination of Lassie, the Dog Whisperer,
and the inventor of Gravy Train. But he and the cats don’t
get along, and that’s why he spends most of his time on
the first floor of the house, and the cats live on the second.
I was visiting one Friday evening, and after I had played with
Quigley, I went upstairs to say hi to one of the cats, Stitch.
Quigley stood watch at the bottom of the steps. In retrospect,
it probably wasn’t the smartest move I ever made to let
Quigley see me holding Stitch.
The ensuing events blur because of how quickly they happened,
but in a nutshell...
Quigley races up the steps, Maureen behind him.
I hold Stitch away from him.
The dog grabs the cat’s leg. (No damage.)
Maureen grabs the dog.
Stitch bites my thumb to get away. (It works. And there's plenty
of damage.)
Four puncture wounds and a ragged tear later, I’m bleeding
in the sink of the upstairs bathroom, cleaning the ball of my
thumb with soap and water and Bactine (that stuff really stings,
so it must work) and applying pressure with gauze and Band-aids.
Maureen is concerned, wondering aloud about the emergency room,
a tetanus shot, and stitches. I nix the ideas; I’d had a
shot in recent memory, and I want nothing more to do with anything
called stitch.
The point of this story? Pick one. A lot of possibilities present
themselves, none in particular. In no special order of importance,
here are a few possible topics for illustration:
1) Cats are ingrates.
2) Dogs are jealous.
3) Cats panic and chomp down on the nearest available piece of
meat.
4) It’s a perfect illustration of irony. The very beast
I’m trying to save from pain inflicts it on me.
5) It illustrates an old saying, one that had always mystified
me: no good deed goes unpunished.
6) Humans cannot reason with animal instinct.
7) The human body’s power to heal itself is a source of
amazement.
8) We can wonder at the suddenness of random events.
9) Seemingly innocent actions can have dire consequences. (All
I wanted to do was pet the damn cat.)
10) Did I mention that cats are ingrates?
I can use this lapse in judgment to illustrate these and other
points in my presentations and articles. That’s true of
your goofs, too. Whereas most people would love to bury such mental
lapses and never be reminded of them again, that doesn’t
apply to writers and speakers. For normal people, such events
are embarrassments. For us, they’re material.
I don't know when or if I'll use this story, but it's there if
I need it. So take the plunge and air out your own lapses. You’ll
be surprised at how much mileage you can get out of one story.
And if you show that you're human and that you make mistakes,
your audience will like you more.
By the way, my friend Stitch is fine. Quigley and I are still
pals, but to Stitch, he's canis non grata. And my thumb
has healed nicely, but if you're looking for a hand model, I'm
not your guy.
# # #
© 2008
by Jay Speyerer
