Chopped

On Monday I got a very lovely manicure.

I still have a (mostly) lovely manicure. I have 9 fingers that sport perfect polish, and one that’s just a little … chipped.

However, I don’t feel badly about the chipped nail. I feel kind of good about it. Because I did it myself.

With a chef’s knife.

And it could have been SO much worse than a chipped nail.

This is what happened: I have this cat, which I may or may not have mentioned about 162165749879874 times. She’s big, she’s goofy, she’s needy. So needy, in fact, that you could classify her as a stage 5 clinger. If she were a human, she’d probably end up as someone’s stalker. I’m just saying – this is one needy “love me love me love me” kind of a cat.

I work from home. You’d think this would kind of temper the neediness because, well, her adoring human is always nearby.

It doesn’t.

When I’m working? She is in my lap. Purring. Which is awesome except that she won’t relax and kick back in my lap. She perches there, so she can see the computer monitor and where my hands are – and if said hands are not actively typing, then they’d best be scratching that spot behind her ears, because otherwise? There’s going to be some nipping. (When she starts the “I’ma bite you now game” I give her the heave ho which usually gives me a good 45 minutes before she’s back to start all over.) If she’s not in my lap, she’s laying on the floor, staring at me with sad, pathetic eyes as if to say: “I don’t know why you’re not down here, playing with me.”

If I get up to, say, use the facilities? She follows me.

If I get up to get coffee? She follows me.

It’s cute. It’s also kind of weird.

At any rate,  the end of my workday is her favorite thing. I know this because she usually celebrates by doing several victory laps around the house, and then being as up my bucket as possible.

She’s underfoot a LOT. I have nearly punted her – purely by accident – more than once.

I think yesterday was an attempt to exact revenge for a near punting incident.

I have, for the record, a lovely and SHARP chef’s knife. I love this knife. I use it for everything. But oooooh boy is it sharp.

I was using it to chop some veggies when the cat decided that she should probably see what I was doing. So she should probably get as close to me as possible. And then she should twitch her tail in my direction so that when I shifted my feet? I would step directly on it.

(as a side note, I’m beginning to think that she does the underfoot, potentially getting harmed thing because she knows that, after said incident, I will feel guilty and lavish her with attention. And treats. She might not be smart, but I’m beginning to think she IS manipulative.)

So anyway, that’s what happened. She sidled in. She twitched the tail. I stepped on it. She freaked out. Between the stepping and the freaking out, she startled me and I sort of – for a split second – missed with the knife control.

You know what you don’t want to do when fine chopping veggies? Lost track of your knife. Because you know what’s down there on the board with your carrots? Your FINGERS.

I’m a big fan of my fingers.

I saw the knife come down – not at the angle I meant for it to – and it was like a bad, slow motion film. There was nothing I could do. I waited for impact.

But – and God bless the shellac manicure – my hard as a rock thumbnail caught the blade first and deflected it. So I lost some nail polish? But I got to keep my thumb.

I may have sworn, though, loudly. I may have put the knife down and sat directly on the floor, somewhat shaken, due to the fact that my need to have pretty nails just protected me from an unscheduled fingerectomy.

As for the cat?  Once I was on the floor, she climbed into my lap and began licking my face. So I guess it ended well for everyone.