Another way a cat can kill you

You know how some people are deathly allergic to cats? Well, we aren't deathly allergic ... we aren't even a little allergic. And yet, a cat nearly killed my son tonight. How, might you ask? Stay tuned, gentle reader ...

A few years ago, I bought Adam an anthology of Get Fuzzy cartoons (I believe for one of those romantic holidays, like our anniversary or Valentine's Day.) In case you are not familiar with the strip, it catalogs the day-to-day life of Robert Wilco, a single guy who can't get a date, his hopelessly dumb but affectionate dog Satchel, and his sociopathic cat (I know, is there any other kind?) Bucky.

Anyway, last night I started reading the Get Fuzzy anthology to Xavier and Gwen. They found it fairly amusing, although it was not amusing enough to lure Gwen back to the sofa tonight. Xavier was ready and willing, however. Again, most of them he found at least somewhat amusing, but one of them really set him off.

In this particular "episode", Bucky the Cat is singing the "I Say Potato, You Say Po-taw-to" song:

(First frame):
Bucky, singing: "I say potato; you say potato. I say tomato and you say tomato."

(Second frame):
Bucky: "Potato! Potato! Tomato! Tomato!"

(Third frame):
Robert (the human): "Um, Bucky, you're not supposed to say it the same way both times."

Bucky: "Potato! Potato! Potato! Potato! Potato!"

Now, being familiar with the song, I read it the "right" way, and it was not until the third frame that I realized I was reading it incorrectly. It didn't matter -- Xavier thought it was hysterical.

"Read it again!" he gasped between laughs. I read it again and he laughed so hard and long that at first I thought his head was going to explode, but it didn't. Instead, he started coughing -- yup, Bucky the Cat had set off his asthma.

But that still didn't stop him. "Again! Again!" he croaked, and we probably read that silly strip ten times before, in the interest of saving his life, I moved on to something else.

But the moral of this story is: "Never trust a cat," even a comic strip cat. Or, at least, never trust a six-year-old boy with an anthology of comic strips.