If there’s one thing I know, it’s that kids will probably freak the fuck out if they see a parent bleeding. There’s also a pretty good chance that, within the larger group of kids who will freak the fuck out when they see a parent bleeding, there is a subset that will also freak the fuck out if they see a parent faint. I can’t say that I’ve done scientific due diligence here, but I have made close observations in one, unplanned case.
My son, much like his father, runs high on the sensitivity scale. We were riding a pretty positive wave while my wife was out of town this weekend, and I felt like I could at least place in the top ten of a Fun-Dad-Of-The-Year pageant. We were two dudes living the life: playing board games, watching movies, pleasantly doing chores around the house, laughing, playing catch, and feeling the gift of warm spring sunshine. That is, until I decided to make friends with a stray tomcat.
Our family is an animal friendly one, and sometimes animal friendly people take some unwise risks. Our oldest cat, who still has some metaphorical balls if not actual balls, is more bluster when it comes to fighting. In his advanced age, he will acquiesce to neighborhood cats if a good holler doesn’t work. I tend to forget that, and I did so when I saw him sitting with an un-neutered, gray tomcat. The strange cat meowed a friendly kind of meow to me from under a bench on our front porch. I decided to make a new animal friend by trying to scratch him under his chin. Acting from a cornered position and seeing a giant, bald human reaching for him, he decided to tear me a new asshole.
The cat placed my new asshole on my hand, and probably hit a vein on one of my knuckles. The result was a bloodbath that put a slight damper on our otherwise nice weekend. I ran to the sink, freaking out, and my son followed suit when he saw my bloody, new-assholed hand. Now, I’m what you might call a “fainter.” As being one of these “fainters,” I staggered to a clear spot on the living room floor to make way for a good faint. Well, my son, not being accustomed to his dad in full-on faint mode, mistook the slow ebb of consciousness as my soul leaving the earthly plane. Yep, he freaked the fuck out.
This wasn’t the first time I have passed out (ask my phlebotomists) or got hurt by trying to make an animal friend (I got my face hurt trying to give a cat a hug, once), and it certainly won’t be the last. All in all, the rest of the weekend was good, my wife gave me a good talking to when she got home on Sunday, and I have an appointment to get antibiotics. Maybe I toughened my son a little. Maybe I took one for the team to teach a life lesson that might spare him his own bloody, fainty experiences. Probably, though, I just added to the litany of stories in the book of Dumb Shit My Dad Did. C’est la vie.
Have a good day!
Otto Scungy
Animals (not humans) fainting
“I ain’t got time to bleed.” Well, maybe I do.
\m/
C’st La Vie
Have a good day!
Otto Scungy
