Once bitten, twice comics

A friend of mine once bit me. That's all there is to it. Nothing else to the story.

Okay, you twisted my arm. I'll give you more detail.

It was New Years' Eve, 1997. We had been drinking too much and it was time to go home. Before I go any further, it could very easily have been the other way around. I'm not trying to incriminate anyone or dish dirt. It's kind of funny, is all. I actually wish it were the other way around. If anything, the whole thing was kind of sweet, and showed his playful side.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. He kind of lived near me and I offered to bring him home. We were both pretty drunk, I only less so in that I knew where we both lived. We were both throwing up every few minutes, including in the cab on the way home. I'm surprised any cab was even willing to take us, let alone travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Maybe because we were both so plastered the cabbie thought they could get more money out of us.

When we stopped at his house, I don't think he even knew we were in a cab or that he was home. I had to carry him out of the cab and up five flights of stairs while he kept saying “Please, God! Kill me now!”. Not that I was feeling any better, but somebody had to pretend to be the more sensible one. I had to play the role we've all played of making sure someone got to their destination because they might otherwise be hurt.

So here's where he bites me. While making sure he got to his bedroom, his cat came out. I went to pet the cat and it bit me, which I would have known would happen had I not been so drunk. My friend suddenly came out of his unconscious stupor to laugh at the whole thing, and because his cat did, he decided to bite me as well. Then he went back to sleep.

Waking up the next day fortunate that I hadn't pulled a Jimi Hendrix in my sleep, I noticed a cat's teethmarks on one side of my hand, and human teethmarks on the other. It took a while to put all the pieces together and remembered what happened.

I actually didn't remember the story until corresponding with someone and finding out we knew him in common. When I told this story, she said, “I often get the sense he's on the verge of biting all of us as soon as we let our guard down.” Maybe he already did and we don't know it. Again, not a character assassination or even the least bit as sensational as I implied. Just a snapshot of the way life was fifteen years ago. It's also a good ice-breaker. “Oh, you know him too? Did I ever tell you about the time he bit me?” This guy is a contemporary and it would be funny to show up at his signings and appearances with a bullhorn telling people waiting in line about how outraged I still am all these years later. Act like it was a terrible injustice. I'd be the only one that would find this funny, though. I think people would probably be more amused by the idea that either of us was ever drunk.