Let's Pretend This Never Happened (33 page)

I stared at the bear and wondered whether Daddy was trying to raise him from the dead, à la Dr. Frankenstein when he hoisted his monster up to the roof to attract the lightning. But then I realized it was probably just a polite way of getting a dead bear out of the way when you had company over, and in a
way it struck me as being kind of ingenious. Like window blinds, but with dead bears.

Victor agreed that it made sense, but then he looked a little shaken and insisted we go home immediately, because whenever all of this starts to seem rational to us that’s usually a sign that we need to leave.

1.
My mom just read this chapter and asked me to clarify that the goats are outside animals. They don’t live here in the house with us. I’m not sure why I have to clarify that, but then I reread the chapter with new eyes and I guess that goats sleeping at the foot of our beds wouldn’t be that strange, comparatively. So, yeah, the goats don’t live in the house with us. That would be weird. And unsanitary. Plus, the goats aren’t even ours. They’re rented goats, because my dad has too much grass, and his friend has too many goats. This all makes sense if you live in the country. Probably.

2.
Please ignore this sentence if Lance Armstrong is dead when you read this. I swear, he looked totally healthy when I wrote this, but the guy isn’t going to live forever,
because he’s not a vampire, y’all
. So I thought I should clarify that as of this moment Lance Armstrong is awesome. Even with only one ball. Hell,
especially
with only one ball. I’m going to stop now.

Stabbed by Chicken

A couple of years ago one of my fingers swelled up like an enormous wiener. The kind you get at the ballpark that plumps when you cook it. Not the other kind. That would be weird. I don’t even know why I’m clarifying this. You know what?
Let’s start again.

A couple of years ago one of my fingers swelled up like an enormous vagina.
Kidding.
It actually just swelled up like a giant swollen finger. It looked like I was wearing one of those “we’re number one!” foam fingers, except that I wasn’t. Sometime during the night I had been struck down with a case of lethal finger cancer. Victor rolled his eyes and muttered that I was a chronic hypochondriac, and I glared at him and rubbed my enormous nonfoam finger down his cheek, whispering, “Thinner.” Then he made me go to the doctor. Alone. Because apparently he thinks I’m strong enough to handle a finger cancer diagnosis with absolutely no support. Or because he’s emotionally shut down and didn’t want to consider my own mortality. Or because he thought I’d just injured it again, like the time when our dog stabbed me with a chicken in the finger. Probably the last one.

This is the point where I would go into detail about my finger cancer, but my editor just read this and told me that you can’t claim that your dog stabbed you with chicken and not logically explain that. I told her that logic didn’t enter into it and she agreed, but probably not for the same reasons. So,
fine.
Here is the prequel to the cancerfingersplosion story, which I
pretty much just pulled from my blog because it happened years ago and I only vaguely remember the details. Because I blocked them out. Because my dog tried to kill me. With chicken.

Blog entry: I can barely even type this because my hand is all swollen, but I was just carrying my pug (Barnaby Jones Pickles) into bed when he suddenly did this flip that almost broke my middle finger, and then he ran in between my legs, and I fell so hard that I couldn’t even move. And just to make it more festive, the dog was jumping on my head (probably to make it seem like we were just play-wrestling and that he
wasn’t
trying to murder me, in case witnesses were watching), but I wasn’t falling for it, so I yelled for Victor, who found me lying on my stomach in front of the fridge. He was all,
“What. The fuck. Did you do?”
and I said, “The dog tried to kill me.” Then Victor leaned down and raised an unnecessary eyebrow as he said in disbelief, “
Our dog
? Our
tiny
little dog did
this to you
?” and I was all, “HE’S LIKE A NINJA!” Then Victor said, “He’s a fucking
pug
. He can’t even reach the couch,” and I was all, “I’M VULNERABLE, ASSHOLE,” and then Victor tried to help me up, and I screamed because I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to move an accident victim, because they could be paralyzed.

Victor agreed to let me just lie on the floor, but only if I would wiggle my feet for him, but at that point I was too afraid that the jostling of my legs might cause my spinal cord to snap, so he picked up the phone and I yelled, “DO
not
CALL AN AMBULANCE,” and he sighed, saying, “If you don’t move your legs I’m going to call the ambulance. Except that
I’m
probably going to get arrested for domestic battery, because
what the hell happened?!
” And I was all, “Oh my God, there are a
lot
of marbles under the refrigerator.
When did we have marbles in the house?
” Then Victor made that noise that usually accompanies him putting his hand over his face and shaking his head like he can’t even believe this is his life, but after a few seconds he paused and said, “Wait.
Where is all this blood coming from?”
And that’s when I noticed I had a long, shallow gash on my hand, and I propped myself up on my elbows to look at it, saying, “How the hell
did
that happen?” And that’s how we figured out I wasn’t paralyzed.

I half suspected that Victor had poured fake blood on me just to distract me into moving, but he almost never has fake blood on him. He’s just not that kind of guy. He might have a tape measure or an expired credit card, but if you need a fake arm or a bear claw you’re looking at the wrong guy. It was nice, though, to see that I was bleeding, because then I knew that at least Victor would take me more seriously. However, I quickly discovered that the main reason he was freaked out about the blood was that we hadn’t sealed the kitchen grout yet, and that this would surely leave a stain. It was a bit uncaring, but I understood his aggravation, because if I ever ended up abducted, this bloodstain could tie him to the murder, but I didn’t mention it, because I didn’t want to give him any ideas. Also, he may have just been pissed about all the marbles under the fridge. But I brushed off his silly housekeeping concerns because I suddenly realized that I was bleeding BECAUSE I’D BEEN STABBED BY CHICKEN.

Coincidentally, this is also when I realized that no one would ever believe this scenario, and also that Victor was
definitely
going to jail, because
who gets stabbed by chicken?
I do,
apparently.
It was one of those dried, sliced chicken-breast treats that I’d been holding in my hand because I was going to feed it to Barnaby Jones, and it was
slightly dangerously
ludicrously
sharp and apparently quite stabbable with enough force. It seemed unbelievable, but it was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone who fell onto a shiv made of poultry. Except that now that I consider it, I’m probably the only person in the world to ever get knifed by a chicken. So
I win.
Or lose. Maybe both.

And then I explained to Victor that it was just that I got stabbed with a chicken, and he started to call the ambulance again, because he assumed I had a concussion. I sighed, tugging on his pant leg to get his attention, and gave him a demonstration by grabbing the chicken shiv and making a stabbing motion with my good hand. And then he stared at me in bafflement and hung up the phone, because he finally understood, or maybe because he thought I was threatening to stab him. Victor explained that he didn’t know what he would tell the ambulance drivers anyway, because, “
There’s no way anyone would believe that our adorable dog could do this sort of damage,
” and he said it in a
really
condescending and judgmental way, and I think that’s why I found myself defensively screaming, “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S LIKE WHEN YOU AREN’T HERE.” This was when Victor tucked Barnaby Jones under his arm, saying, “Don’t listen to Mommy’s ravings, Mr. Jones,” and carried him to bed so they could watch
Mythbusters
together. I may have yelled from the floor, “
He would have pushed me down the stairs, if we had stairs.
” I also may have implied that Barnaby Jones would probably rip out our throats while we slept, now that he’d developed a taste for human blood, and Victor yelled that Barnaby Jones couldn’t hear the TV because of all of the shouting, and that he wasn’t going to talk to someone who was overreacting on the kitchen floor. I explained that “overreaction” is a common symptom of a person going into shock, and he said that it wasn’t, and so I had to go look for my medical dictionary myself, with my broken finger, and I couldn’t even find it. I shouldn’t even be allowed to type this right now. I should be wrapped in a warm blanket and not be allowed to go to sleep. Or I should be made to go to sleep. One of those. Or maybe I need a hot toddy. I probably
knew
the correct procedure for this sort of thing before the dog gave me a concussion by trying to kill me with chicken.

P.S. Victor
totally
owes me, because he would have gone to jail automatically because he was wearing only a half-shirt, and if you aren’t wearing a whole shirt when the police come, you go to jail. That’s how jail works.

P.P.S. Just to clarify, it’s a half-shirt in that it’s sleeveless. It’s not the kind that ends under his nipples. Victor can’t really pull that sort of look off. I don’t know whether you go to jail for that kind of shirt. Probably so, though, if there’s a nipply half-shirt, a dog, and a bunch of human blood involved.

P.P.P.S. How do you know whether your pupils are dilated? What are they supposed to look like normally? Why is WebMD so complicated? Why can’t I stop reading about cancer when I’m trying to look up concussions? Great.
Now I have cancer.
Thanks a lot, Barnaby Jones.

Updated: Went to the ER this morning. Explained the situation. They wrote, “Stabbed by chicken,” on my chart. Then they asked whether I had any “psych issues,” but I thought they said “psychic issues” and I was all, “Like . . .
can I read your thoughts
?” Then they put me in a private room. I think the lesson here is that you should fake mental illness to get faster service. Turns out, though, that it’s just a sprain, so I have to wear a splint until it heals, and I also have to keep it elevated. Here’s a picture of me driving myself home: