Back in 2007 I named my 2nd cat Voldemort. I was having trouble naming my new stray and finally realized – if he’s that hard to name he must be “he who must not be named”. Later did it occurred to me that it was quite thematic because he’s black, and eventually I learned that it is fitting because for the first few years he was THE evil trip-hazard from hell.

Voldemort turns out to be a good gag name for a cat. Just hours after I named him he was in the vet’s office and when his turn came the cute assistant said “Can we have… Voldemort — oh, I didn’t want to say that”. A few years later the cute vet came in to exam room, looked at the chart, and said “How’s you-know-who?”. Sadly, the head vet is a Lord of the Rings fan and doesn’t get Harry Potter references.

Early one morning in 2008 I was carrying something that blocked my view of my feet, and being careless because the evil one was sound asleep 10 feet behind me. When I felt my foot coming down on fur I instinctively lifted it. Word to the wise (or at least to whoever reads this) lifting a foot once you’ve started to put weight on is a bad move. I did not land gracefully like a cat, I went forward/sideways into a corner and got a major league gash on the side of my forehead. There were interesting sound effects from me starting before I even landed, and a cat about 6 feet front of me acting all “What’s with the big guy? Who, ME?”

So I took a couple pics and drove myself to the nearest doctor’s office that was open, thinking on the way how much fun it would be to walk in going “grrr argh!” and acting like a zombie. The pics would show I could have fit right in on a zombie movie set, but they are too nasty to post here — lots of blood and you can see the big gash.

The doctor decided the wound looked too scary and called an ambulance to take me to the emergency room. This wasn’t too long after someone had been in the news for taking a thunk on the head, walking around and being ok for a while, and then dropping dead, so the doctor wasn’t being unreasonable.

The emergency room put me in a wheelchair and rolled me over for a CAT scan (get it?). On the way back to the waiting area they wheeled me past a doctor who looked up, did a double-take and said “whoa!”. If you get that reaction from an emergency room doctor you are officially not pretty.

Then they had me wait long enough so I would have dropped dead if I were going to, gave me 12 stitches, cleaned off some blood, bandaged me, and let me loose to call a coworker and ask for a ride to where my car was. There was still a lof of blood in my hair and he suggested that I shouldn’t go to work until I could clean it off, which would be a while because I was supposed to keep the wound dry. As good an excuse for a day off as any, right?

Later at work, a co-worker who did not know the cat’s name said I was going to have a Harry Potter scar…. so it’s official, I have a Harry Potter scar because of Voldemort 🙂

Eventually there was a form letter from my health insurance company asking if I had been in auto accident and did the other driver have insurance? I had fun explaining that it was a collision with a cat, and no, he did not have insurance. I regret not saying more about how the jerk cut in front of me and didn’t even have a licence.