Victor agreed to let me just lie on the floor, but only if I would wiggle my feet for him, but at that point I was too afraid that the jostling of my legs might cause my spinal cord to snap, so he picked up the phone and I yelled, “DO not CALL AN AMBULANCE,” and he sighed, saying, “If you don’t move your legs I’m going to call the ambulance. Except that I’m probably going to get arrested for domestic battery, because what the hell happened?!” And I was all, “Oh my God, there are a lot of marbles under the refrigerator. When did we have marbles in the house?” Then Victor made that noise that usually accompanies him putting his hand over his face and shaking his head like he can’t even believe this is his life, but after a few seconds he paused and said, “Wait. Where is all this blood coming from?” And that’s when I noticed I had a long, shallow gash on my hand, and I propped myself up on my elbows to look at it, saying, “How the hell did that happen?” And that’s how we figured out I wasn’t paralyzed.
I half suspected that Victor had poured fake blood on me just to distract me into moving, but he almost never has fake blood on him. He’s just not that kind of guy. He might have a tape measure or an expired credit card, but if you need a fake arm or a bear claw you’re looking at the wrong guy. It was nice, though, to see that I was bleeding, because then I knew that at least Victor would take me more seriously. However, I quickly discovered that the main reason he was freaked out about the blood was that we hadn’t sealed the kitchen grout yet, and that this would surely leave a stain. It was a bit uncaring, but I understood his aggravation, because if I ever ended up abducted, this bloodstain could tie him to the murder, but I didn’t mention it, because I didn’t want to give him any ideas. Also, he may have just been pissed about all the marbles under the fridge. But I brushed off his silly housekeeping concerns because I suddenly realized that I was bleeding BECAUSE I’D BEEN STABBED BY CHICKEN.
Coincidentally, this is also when I realized that no one would ever believe this scenario, and also that Victor was definitely going to jail, because who gets stabbed by chicken? I do, apparently. It was one of those dried, sliced chicken-breast treats that I’d been holding in my hand because I was going to feed it to Barnaby Jones, and it was slightly dangerously ludicrously sharp and apparently quite stabbable with enough force. It seemed unbelievable, but it was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone who fell onto a shiv made of poultry. Except that now that I consider it, I’m probably the only person in the world to ever get knifed by a chicken. So I win. Or lose. Maybe both.
And then I explained to Victor that it was just that I got stabbed with a chicken, and he started to call the ambulance again, because he assumed I had a concussion. I sighed, tugging on his pant leg to get his attention, and gave him a demonstration by grabbing the chicken shiv and making a stabbing motion with my good hand. And then he stared at me in bafflement and hung up the phone, because he finally understood, or maybe because he thought I was threatening to stab him. Victor explained that he didn’t know what he would tell the ambulance drivers anyway, because, “There’s no way anyone would believe that our adorable dog could do this sort of damage,” and he said it in a really condescending and judgmental way, and I think that’s why I found myself defensively screaming, “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S LIKE WHEN YOU AREN’T HERE.” This was when Victor tucked Barnaby Jones under his arm, saying, “Don’t listen to Mommy’s ravings, Mr. Jones,” and carried him to bed so they could watch Mythbusters together. I may have yelled from the floor, “He would have pushed me down the stairs, if we had stairs.” I also may have implied that Barnaby Jones would probably rip out our throats while we slept, now that he’d developed a taste for human blood, and Victor yelled that Barnaby Jones couldn’t hear the TV because of all of the shouting, and that he wasn’t going to talk to someone who was overreacting on the kitchen floor. I explained that “overreaction” is a common symptom of a person going into shock, and he said that it wasn’t, and so I had to go look for my medical dictionary myself, with my broken finger, and I couldn’t even find it. I shouldn’t even be allowed to type this right now. I should be wrapped in a warm blanket and not be allowed to go to sleep. Or I should be made to go to sleep. One of those. Or maybe I need a hot toddy. I probably knew the correct procedure for this sort of thing before the dog gave me a concussion by trying to kill me with chicken.
P.S. Victor totally owes me, because he would have gone to jail automatically because he was wearing only a half-shirt, and if you aren’t wearing a whole shirt when the police come, you go to jail. That’s how jail works.
P.P.S. Just to clarify, it’s a half-shirt in that it’s sleeveless. It’s not the kind that ends under his nipples. Victor can’t really pull that sort of look off. I don’t know whether you go to jail for that kind of shirt. Probably so, though, if there’s a nipply half-shirt, a dog, and a bunch of human blood involved.
P.P.P.S. How do you know whether your pupils are dilated? What are they supposed to look like normally? Why is WebMD so complicated? Why can’t I stop reading about cancer when I’m trying to look up concussions? Great. Now I have cancer. Thanks a lot, Barnaby Jones.