2/15/10 Bugs, Bruises and Banana Bread

Scene: Late afternoon. Our lovable heroine is in the office, two cats wedged onto her lap, doing very important and possibly world-changing work in front of the computer (read: looking for a new recipe for banana muffins since banana bread is my holy grail of baking and my latest recipe is okay and all, but I'm not convinced that there isn't one out there that is absolutely TO DIE FOR). There is a third cat sitting next to the keyboard, and a fourth on the floor next to the chair.

The cats are staring at me. (They are under the mistaken impression that if they hang around long enough, it will miraculously become cat treat time. Therefore, they have spent the day making pests of themselves by constantly being on-lap and underfoot). I, however, am on a treat quest of my own, which will hopefully take the form of some banana bread goodness. I found a nice little recipe that looked promising (and with a crumble topping too!) and only included normal-sounding ingredients that I already had on-hand, which is a definite plus. (You wouldn't believe some of the crazy stuff people put into their banana bread! Cream of tartar? Really?)

Anyway, I decide to give this particular recipe a try, so I hit the print button and the printer on the edge of the desk rumbled to life. Only instead of printing out my lovely banana bread instructions, the printer shoots out this giant horrible insect creature, which flies directly at my head and TRIES TO KILL ME. (It all happened really fast, but I swear I could see the murderous loathing in its little buggy eyes). And while it's launching a rather successful aerial attack, I'm flailing around trying to fend it off, (it hit my hand! It hit my hand! Ew! Ew! Ewwww!) and the cats are under the impression that all this activity is somehow meant for them. So Mason, (who was sitting next to the keyboard during this vicious and completely unprovoked attack) decides to try to get into my lap where Dixon and Sebastian ALREADY ARE, and the weight of three large cats plus my flailing is enough to unbalance the chair to the point that we tip one way and the roll-y casters go the other.

You know how they say that during an accident everything seems to go in super slow motion? Totally happened here. It's like I was outside my body, watching the whole thing as we balanced precariously on the edge of one caster. My eyes were as big as saucers, the cats were hanging on for dear life, my arms were pinwheeling in frantic slow motion, and over it all you could hear the bug laughing this high-pitched evil bug laugh from somewhere next to my right ear. We balanced like that just long enough for me to completely register how much this next part was going to suck, and then the caster tipped.

The crash was epic! Not only did we hit the floor, but we hit and bounced. (The only thing missing was the obligatory end-of-crash burst into flames sequence. And I'm sure we totally would have managed that too if the chair had been just a little higher) . My hand caught the edge of the keyboard on the way down, so half of the stuff on the desk ended up coming down with us. I landed half on the chair and half on a cat scratching post (not my first choice in the list of things I'd pick to break my fall), the keyboard caught me on the shoulder, and 45lbs of panicked cat landed safely but none too softly on my stomach...claws anchored into my flesh for increased stability. The whole ordeal knocked the wind out of me, so as four cats (spooked into puffing up 10 times their normal size) streaked out of the room and under the master bed for safety, the only thing I could do was wheeze out, "Wait! You're pest control! Who's going to catch the bug, you traitors!?!"

The bug was discovered laughing his head off a few minutes after I was able to pick my bruised and battered body up off of the floor. Since my pest eradication squad was still hunkered under the bed and refusing to come out (the wusses), I had no choice but to vacate the office until Tony could get home and take care of the intruder. (Don't look at me like that. It was HUGE! Like, flying monkey huge! You would have been scared too).

Also? The banana bread recipe has been exchanged for one regarding rum cake. After all that, I think I need the alcohol.