My surreal evening
May. 18th, 2005 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqOwning a cat can be a really dubious pleasure sometimes.
My cat is not very large, and she enjoys curling up on my shoulder while I'm sitting at the computer. This evening I was sitting beside![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atara watching her play WoW with my cat curled up on my shoulder. Suddenly some random neurons clicked in the cat's head and she decided that she had to be somewhere else. She sized up the distance from my shoulder to my lap. Normally I'd be concerned about having a cat jump from my shoulder to my bare thigh (wearing shorts), but it's a pretty routine maneuver, and she's very good about keeping her claws in check.
Except when she misjudges and slips.
Suddenly I had a panicking cat sliding off of my bare lap. She managed to carve a bloody furrow a quarter of the way around my thigh, from the top down the inside. Eventually she got enough of a grip on my bare skin to propel herself forward ontoatara's computer where, unfortunately, I had a quarter glass of orange juice sitting. The cat went one way, and the orange juice went the other way, spraying over a surprisingly wide swath of real estate.
I rushed out to the other room for a towel, and got down on my hands and knees to frantically mop it up before it could spread any further. In my haste I forgot about the loose nail that sticks up out of our hardwood floor, and I managed to catch my middle toe on it, tearing back a sizable chunk of the nail. Aside from the nail being ripped there didn't seem to be much damage, so I finished cleaning up as well as I could and settled in to watch her play WoW some more (I'm one of those weirdos who enjoy watching somebody else play a game like that almost as much as I like playing it myself). The throbbing toe distracted me enough to notice that it was beginning to bleed profusely. I mopped up the blood, washed it with peroxide and dabbed some iodine around the wound.
I returned to my spectator's seat, when the stinging in my thigh finally called my attention to the fact that it was oozing blood as well, and that I'd managed to get blood all over my shirt and shorts. Ouch. This time it called for the application of peroxide, iodine, and stain remover. Fortunately I managed to get the blood out before it had a chance to set.
I had just returned to the computer room when I got a surreal phone call on my work cell.
It's normally supposed to be just an emergency number (so it always makes me jump when it rings), but when I left work a bit early today I took the time to forward my desk phone to the cell in case anything came up. I recognized the number on the call display as one of my co-workers (the one I've complained about here recently). I knew that he was trying to call me at work, since he doesn't have my cell number, and I wondered what could possibly make him think that I'd be at work at 8:30 in the evening. When I answered, he told me in a rather matter-of-fact way that he'd decided not to come in to work today. Normally I'd accept a statement like that at face value, except for the face that he'd already put in his eight hours today. I work right across from him, and either he'd sent in a doppelganger in his stead, or we'd suffered a mass illusion at the office today.
O_o
I told him that I certainly wasn't expecting him in to work, and in fact the only reason I'd got his call at all was because I'd forwarded my work phone to the cell. He rattled off a list of reasons why he had decided to cash in a vacation day today.
"You mean tomorrow...?"
"No, today. I'm taking a vacation day today and I won't be in."
"Uh, today is over. You do know that it's only Wednesday night, don't you?"
"What are you talking about?"
It became clear that he thought that it was 8:30 Thursday morning, and it took some work on my part to convince him otherwise. Gah. I hope he called me before he called the boss. It turns out that he'd taken a nap, and when he woke up he saw that it was 8:30, and he just assumed that it was Thursday morning and he'd overslept. It didn't help that CNN was apparently showing the same programming that they usually show in the morning.
Having been there and done that a few times in the past - especially when I was working shifts - I can sympathize. Still, it was a bit surreal while the moment morphed from "why is he calling me at home?" to "He thinks I'm at work and that it's tomorrow".
My cat is not very large, and she enjoys curling up on my shoulder while I'm sitting at the computer. This evening I was sitting beside
atara watching her play WoW with my cat curled up on my shoulder. Suddenly some random neurons clicked in the cat's head and she decided that she had to be somewhere else. She sized up the distance from my shoulder to my lap. Normally I'd be concerned about having a cat jump from my shoulder to my bare thigh (wearing shorts), but it's a pretty routine maneuver, and she's very good about keeping her claws in check.Except when she misjudges and slips.
Suddenly I had a panicking cat sliding off of my bare lap. She managed to carve a bloody furrow a quarter of the way around my thigh, from the top down the inside. Eventually she got enough of a grip on my bare skin to propel herself forward onto
atara's computer where, unfortunately, I had a quarter glass of orange juice sitting. The cat went one way, and the orange juice went the other way, spraying over a surprisingly wide swath of real estate.I rushed out to the other room for a towel, and got down on my hands and knees to frantically mop it up before it could spread any further. In my haste I forgot about the loose nail that sticks up out of our hardwood floor, and I managed to catch my middle toe on it, tearing back a sizable chunk of the nail. Aside from the nail being ripped there didn't seem to be much damage, so I finished cleaning up as well as I could and settled in to watch her play WoW some more (I'm one of those weirdos who enjoy watching somebody else play a game like that almost as much as I like playing it myself). The throbbing toe distracted me enough to notice that it was beginning to bleed profusely. I mopped up the blood, washed it with peroxide and dabbed some iodine around the wound.
I returned to my spectator's seat, when the stinging in my thigh finally called my attention to the fact that it was oozing blood as well, and that I'd managed to get blood all over my shirt and shorts. Ouch. This time it called for the application of peroxide, iodine, and stain remover. Fortunately I managed to get the blood out before it had a chance to set.
I had just returned to the computer room when I got a surreal phone call on my work cell.
It's normally supposed to be just an emergency number (so it always makes me jump when it rings), but when I left work a bit early today I took the time to forward my desk phone to the cell in case anything came up. I recognized the number on the call display as one of my co-workers (the one I've complained about here recently). I knew that he was trying to call me at work, since he doesn't have my cell number, and I wondered what could possibly make him think that I'd be at work at 8:30 in the evening. When I answered, he told me in a rather matter-of-fact way that he'd decided not to come in to work today. Normally I'd accept a statement like that at face value, except for the face that he'd already put in his eight hours today. I work right across from him, and either he'd sent in a doppelganger in his stead, or we'd suffered a mass illusion at the office today.
O_o
I told him that I certainly wasn't expecting him in to work, and in fact the only reason I'd got his call at all was because I'd forwarded my work phone to the cell. He rattled off a list of reasons why he had decided to cash in a vacation day today.
"You mean tomorrow...?"
"No, today. I'm taking a vacation day today and I won't be in."
"Uh, today is over. You do know that it's only Wednesday night, don't you?"
"What are you talking about?"
It became clear that he thought that it was 8:30 Thursday morning, and it took some work on my part to convince him otherwise. Gah. I hope he called me before he called the boss. It turns out that he'd taken a nap, and when he woke up he saw that it was 8:30, and he just assumed that it was Thursday morning and he'd overslept. It didn't help that CNN was apparently showing the same programming that they usually show in the morning.
Having been there and done that a few times in the past - especially when I was working shifts - I can sympathize. Still, it was a bit surreal while the moment morphed from "why is he calling me at home?" to "He thinks I'm at work and that it's tomorrow".
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 12:00 pm (UTC)While I can't deny this statement overall, in this instance I can understand his confusion. At this time of year - especially when it's overcast - the day looks the same at 8:30AM as it does at 8:30PM.
He was a bit of a dork for arguing with me when I tried to convince him that it was PM though. ;p
no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 04:50 pm (UTC)"OK, take the rest of the day off if you have to. We'll have to count it as a vacation day, since you've requested that. I suggest that you sleep it off. But we'll see you at work tomorrow, right?"
Then wait for the inevitable follow-up phone call as he realises in horror that it is getting darker and darker outside. ;-)