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Once during a party thrown by my parents I learned two very important lessons. One: do not force a cat into a box against its will, and two: people will not show sympathy if you are injured due to your own stupidity. It’s a shame that these lessons were learned only after the cat was already clinging onto my face.

I can’t say that I remember the event that brought friends and family members to our home that day, but I do remember that we were all in the garage talking when a young me, desperate for attention, decided that I would stuff my cat into an empty refrigerator box and stand it up on end, trapping her in a prison of cardboard. She began to scratch, whine, and jump in feeble attempts to escape. Eventually someone at the party, who had obviously left their sense of humor at home, mentioned how cruel and mean my actions were so I tilted the box over to peek inside and make sure my cat was doing alright.

As the large box tipped down far enough where I could see inside, I was greeted by a pair of large, feral, glowing yellow eyes rushing up the box towards me like an out of control semi truck. In a moment of panic I let go of the box causing it to fall to the ground, but by then it was too late. The cat had already leapt for her freedom. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my mouth and realized the horrible truth: the cat was officially dangling from my lower lip with one claw.

I did what anyone would do in my situation and started screaming bloody murder and shaking my head profusely causing the feline to swing side to side as it screeched like a stuck pig. Eventually I stopped when I realized that everyone had gotten very silent and were all eyeballing my current situation. The guests had varying degrees of shock, horror, disbelief, and disgust across their faces. I had officially become the train wreck that everyone can’t help but watch. Once they realized that I had become conscious of their stares, the place erupted in pandemonium. My mother rushed to the rescue and together we unhinged the cat from my jaw. I asked her how badly I was injured since I was fairly certain that my face could only be identified via dental records. My mother assured me that I wasn’t bleeding and everything was just fine. This calmed me down so I went inside to check on my battle wounds. When I got into the bathroom and turned on the light I realized that my own mom had filled me with deceit. The image I saw in the mirror was like something out of a gruesome slasher flick. Blood ran down one side of my mouth, and tears down the other.

After cleaning up the puncture wound and rejoining the party, I received no sympathy. In fact, everyone was busy adding insult to injury making sure the cat was okay and hadn’t broken a nail on my face. They took their turns hassling me for messing with the animal in the first place saying things like “face wounds help you build character” and “you got what was coming to you, young man” and even my Grandma told me not to worry because my enormous head would continue to draw attention away from my face. Of course, she was on the sauce that night. Overall, no one seemed very concerned for my physical or emotional health. I tried to take comfort in the fact that all of the guests would leave that night and have nightmares of a boy flailing wildly with a cat stuck to his face.

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