Every day when I leave for town, I stop at the side porch to pet Juno and Jack, and give them a handful of cat kibble. Yes, I know I used to do this only upon my return, but they look at me so expectantly that I cave in and dole it out. Neither of them are getting pudgy, so it's okay for now.
Saturday, I wished I'd brought a jacket. The wind was whipping my lovely lady-mullet and sending a chill through my bones at 45 degrees (minus wind chill). My joints and sinuses told me the air pressure was dropping. No need for a storebought barometer. In fact, when I pushed the end of my nose sideways to relieve some pressure, I heard the contents of my sinuses crackle.
My noggin was working its way up to one of those headaches that makes the back of neck hurt, which makes my shoulders hurt, which makes my back hurt. Trying to put the kibosh on that (didn't work), I popped an acetaminophen when I stopped to pick up the mail, and unwrapped a Halls Mentho-Lyptus Honey Lemon cough drop. I carry a bag in T-Hoe's console, more for shrinking my sinuses than for actual coughing.
I twisted open the wrapper and tossed the lozenge into my mouth. Whoopsie! I'd meant to take another drink of water to wash down that acetaminophen. I took out the cough drop and held it between my thumb and two fingers, while twisting the lid off a bottle of water with the fleshy under-finger area by the heel of my hand. Thank the Gummi Mary, it was not a new bottle, but one left from our Oklahoma trip that had already been partially drunk.
Lid back on the water, I put the cough drop back in my mouth, and licked the sticky off my fingers. I was about a quarter mile up the road when it hit me. I had
LICKED THE STICKY OFF MY FINGERS!
The fingers that had been plunged into the roaster pan of cat kibble five minutes earlier. The cat kibble that sometimes the cat vomits in, and that squirrels sit in to gorge themselves while I'm in the house.
My fingers took a lickin', and I'm still kickin'. So I guess I haven't contracted a fatal disease. Unless it's a slow-acting one...
And what lovely spots do cats lick... that is now causing yummy tidbits to travel through you, coursing through your digestive system?
ReplyDeleteI couldn't resist...
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure there is no spot that cats DON'T lick... Maybe I have antibodies from the time I chewed on Juno's rubbery black nose, and more recently, the booster I got from a jab of Marley's wet fur-mustached nose.
I'm pretty sure cats can't lick the tops of their heads nor the back of the neck right between neck and shoulder blades which is where we're supposed to squeeze the flea poison, so it can travel along the skin a bit and do its work.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry about the miniscule amount of god-knows-what you may have ingested. Probably most of it rubbed off on T-Hoe's door handle and the pack of aceto...whatever, I can't remember how it's spelled.
River,
ReplyDeleteWell, they lick their paws and groom their heads, but I guess the back of a cat's neck is FILTHY, heh, heh! Now I'm thinking of what might cling to the paws in the litter box or the wild outdoors...
Hopefully, the residue on my fingers got stuck in the earwax deposits that Farmer H leaves on T-Hoe's steering wheel.
Earwax on the steering wheel????
ReplyDeleteOh dear God! I just ate lunch.....
If I were you I'd be scrubbing that thing with bleach and wearing driving gloves and forbidding any ear cleaning while in the car.
River,
ReplyDeleteI used to wonder why there seemed to be a sticky film on the steering wheel after Farmer H drove my car. I assumed it was some kind of grease from working on machines. Then I saw with my own eyes as he dug around in his ear, looked at his finger, then gripped the steering wheel.
I might need a hazmat suit for cleanup, and a taser for discouragement.