wolverine attack

last night, i was mysteriously attacked in my bed. twice. 

the first attack was while i was sitting on the bed, next to the nightstand, taking my nightly dose of ambien and applying my breathe-right strip. as i reached into the drawer for those things, i felt a bite on my upper arm. not enough to break the skin, but deliberate and painful. i yelled and felt for chloe, our tuxedo cat, in her usual spot. every night, she hops up on a specific spot on the bed right beside where i was sitting, and she snuggles me while i play a little logic game on my ipad before i fall asleep. i felt a furry body and pushed it angrily away from me. how dare she sit there complacently after attacking me, right? i managed to flick on the bedside light, and chloe was looking at me from the other end of the bed, confused. i shuffled the covers to make her jump off (still angry, i was).

this was baffling to me. chloe is a very, very docile, compliant cat. aside from the fact that she hates to be picked up, constantly trolls for food, and occasionally pees outside the litter box, she is a perfect cat. she never bites or shows any aggression, ever, even if you're touching her feet or trying to pick her up or whatever. just purrs and snuggles. and follows me everywhere.

but back to last night. i turned off the light and started to settle down into bed with my ipad, when i felt another bite. but this one was extremely painful and forceful, on my hand. the bones of my hand were actually crushed together. i screamed. and screamed. and swore. and held my hand. i managed to turn the light back on. my screaming had broken through andrew's noise-canceling headphones downstairs, and he came upstairs to see what had happened. the dogs came to investigate. chloe was nowhere to be seen, but jack-jack, our black cat, was meowing loudly on the floor beside the bed. my hand also had two bleeding, inflamed, red holes and a couple of scratches on it.

jack-jack is a wonderful cat in ways that chloe isn't. he LOVES to be picked up and carried around. he is perfect in his litter-box habits. and he is curious about food but is much more obedient if you shoo him away. he is very purry, and he is independent but can be very snuggly when he wants to be (read: if you have a particular blanket over you). but he does bite and scratch sometimes.

my internet friends (because naturally i posted a rant about the incident on LSG immediately after it happened, as you do) urged me to go to the emergency room because cat bites are awful. and the internet itself told me the same. get antibiotics! within eight hours! cat bites are deeper than they appear! your hand will fall off! you will never knit again! you will not be able to type any more and you'll have to quit your job, which you love so much and want to have for the next 20 years! arm-ageddon!

so i went downstairs, but i couldn't find any betadine or peroxide (somewhere in this house is an awesome box of first-aid stuff, but i have no idea where it is now, after rounds and rounds of renovations, a fact that i will be remedying today with a giant order from drugstore.com). so i washed it well with soap and water and went back to bed. as you do.

so. my original theory when all this happened was that chloe issued the first attack and jack-jack issued the second.

then, considering the personalities involved, i thought that maybe chloe and jack-jack were fighting, as they sometimes do (well, really it's jack-jack trying to remove chloe from someplace he wants to be, because he's an asshole like that to her sometimes), and i got caught in the crossfire. (but twice?)

or maybe it was jack-jack both times, and poor chloe just hadn't had the sense to leave the scene of the first crime (she is not the smartest cat i've ever met, dear though she is).

but these are all scenarios that make me sad and mad. my kitties? attacking me? unprovoked? i wasn't trying to clip anyone's nails. i didn't even know anyone was there. how dare they!

so. i have decided on an alternative narrative. a wolverine broke into my room last night and hid under the bed until the lights were out. then it attacked me. TWICE. the bastard. and the cats were just there trying to defend me.

that's what happened. right? 

it's more than 12 hours later. the redness and inflammation from the bite wounds are pretty much gone, though the holes are still obvious. and the bones still hurt, like a sprain, and i have limited range of motion in that hand. typing this hurts. fucking wolverines.