So I managed to injure myself today. Oddly I'd just been reading about Dave's accidental self-harming in Siberia when Hunter decided to start prowling around my feet in a needy kind of way. This is par for the course on a weekend and so, despite still being half asleep, I decided to attempt one of the more advanced cat-mollifying procedures in my repertoire - the inverse fluff flip.
The inverse fluff flip involves grabbing Hunter by his belly and rapidly scooping him up. While in mid-air you have to quickly invert him and then lay him down, on his back, in your lap. This normally goes down pretty well, and after a few seconds of belly fluff tickling he'll fall into a dozy, purring snooze. Not today, though.
Today, as I was attempting the vital "flip" section of the manouver, something went wrong. For whatever reason, Hunter became unsure and decided to reach out with a clawed paw and grab hold of something for stability. Unfortunately for me, that something was my chin. The shock of realising that I had a good half-centimetre of cat claw embedded in my face then put me off my stride somewhat, and that in turn must have convinced Hunter that now was a good time to struggle free from my grip.
So I'm half standing, half sitting, looking down at the rather large grey cat that is now hanging from my face by a single claw. And, in that brief moment, he looks back up at me, with an expression making clear that he holds me entirely responsible for this predicament. Maybe half a second of cat hanging later and I manage to drop to the floor where, with three legs on terra firma, he decides it's safe to let go.
End result: one rather miffed cat who kept his distance for me for all of about ten seconds, wherupon he returned to his earlier demands for attention, and one hole in my face. This is both remarkably small, and producing a remarkable amount of blood. Ouch. Obviously, if it scars I'll have to come up with a far more heroic story. "I was attacked by a big cat" is almost true.
