Having lived with animals for so long, maybe you would think I would know better. Do you ever walk about the house and encounter - by way of stepping on it - a small, soft, inanimate thing? If you’ve got pets in your house, you know what I’m getting at. It can be a sock or a kids’ toy or even sometimes something harder. But the reaction is the same upon stepping on it: You fall over yourself not to put weight on it.
Why? Because you think it’s one of your pet’s appendages.
I nearly killed myself yesterday, when I got to the bottom of the basement stairs. I was carrying a carboy full of beer to the basement to ferment. Deimos likes to bat his toys under the basement door, and sometimes they end up tumbling down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I put the ball of my foot down on a small stuffed mouse, had the “Ack! I’m stepping on a cat!” reaction, and nearly dropped the carboy on myself trying not to crush what couldn’t possibly be a cat, since I’d taken great pains not to let the cats follow me into the basement.
This kind of thing happens in bed, too. I’ll climb across the bed in the dark, ready for sleep, and put my hand on some lump under the sheets. This will cause me to complete freak out about not crushing what usually ends up being a forgotten t-shirt from putting away the laundry, or even just a strange rolling-up of the blankets.
This is not to say my fears are unfounded. While thinking about writing this post this morning, I was cutting bananas for Riley’s Cheerios. When I turned to place the bowl on the table, I took a step and crushed something that emitted a distinctive yowl of feline pain. Pretty sure it was Deimos’ tail, based on the way he ran off and cast me the evil eye. I’m so not going to sleep soundly tonight, for fear of cat revenge.
So I suspect I won’t be giving up this little neurosis any time soon.
