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The TRUE Evil of HDMI Cables
Jun. 19th, 2011 06:18 pmAlso titled, "The Worst Thing That Ever Happened To My Cat".
This is a tale which begins while I am attempting to fold laundry. A whole big pile of laundry. It's phew-hot outside, and so I drop it on my bed and then attempt to turn on the TV. I thought I would watch a little random television whilst I folded the clothes. To tell the truth, it's really the only time I watch television that doesn't come from Netflix.
But, the clicker won't click, and despite some on-off-on-off of the television, I can't seem to make it work. "Aha" my 102F addled-brain declares, "We have recently installed an XBOX360. Perhaps something is...unplugged." So, I go over to look for the offending cable, which happens to be the HDMI cable. You know, the ones that cost about $8, but sell for $300 at Best Buy?
Okay, quick diversion.
Not three weeks ago, our house had a minor infestation of fruit flies. The cause turned out to be an orange that had gone a bit ripe. (How can you tell with oranges sometimes, you know? The skin stays orange, but inside it's all ooky-squish-gross.) So, we had fruit flies. And, in order to combat the fruit flies, I bought fly paper. If you've never used fly paper (and I know most of you have), it comes in a little paper roll. You pop one end of it off, pull out the coil of sticky-sticky-sticky paper, and use the included tack to hang it up. It smells nummy to flies, so they land on it and get all stuck and die a horrible gooey death.
I put up several of these around the house to get the errant fruit flies that had not yet died due to orange-removal. One of these strips I put up in our bedroom, next to the television.
I don't know why. I'm a dumbass, I guess.
So, here's me bumbling around, trying to plug in the HDMI cable, when all of a sudden...
*tunk* *hair* *sticky* *hairpull* "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
That's right. I had managed to get my hair stuck to the fly-paper.
So Steven comes running in and says, "Don't move!" I freeze in place, because so far it's only stuck to a few purple strands in front. "Okay, okay, I know how to fix it," he assures me. After prying the sticky-fly-paper off of my head (didn't hurt actually), he ushers me into the kitchen, grabs some olive oil, and has me lean over the sink. My hair gets gooped up with olive oil, and then rinsed out with dishwashing soap.
He does a pretty good job of it. No sticky left at all.
Steven and I laugh over the ordeal, and I feel relieved that my guy knows these sorts of clever things. And, thinking I am all clever too, I say to Steven, "Ah! You know, we don't have fruit flies anymore. We should take these things down before I accidentally do that to myself again."
Because I probably would.
Because if there is a table to bump my knee on, or a sharp thing to step on, or any chance of stubbing my toe, I will. I am, as they say, accident prone.
"Good idea!" Steven declares, and immediately we begin wandering the house, pulling down the six or so flypaper streamers that I've tacked to walls or whatever.
Here's a thing. I bet you didn't know that a streaming piece of curly fly-paper being taken to the trash can, all fluttery and twisty, all shiny and interesting...looks exactly like the BEST CAT TOY EVER.
EVER.
Out of nowhere, our cat Seti leaps...LEAPS across the room to catch this toy. He's a leaper, our Seti. Sometimes, he just stands next to the wall and waits for me to put my hand at progressively higher spots, and then leaps STRAIGHT UP to "catch" my hand's shadow. He can jump from a sitting position to over my head. So, when I say it was an unexpected and epic leaping, I do not much exaggerate.
So, Seti has caught a sticky piece of fly-paper. And it's sticking to his fur more and more by the moment. He quickly goes from, "OMG TOY" to "OMGWTF GET IT OFF". Unfortunately, in such a situation, the cat defies physics by being in the air, all claws, and all sticky flypaper at the same time -- but still unable to be captured by human hands.
This whole time, I am shrieking, "Oh god, Seti...no! NO!" Because I am envisioning him getting it tangled around his throat or taking a nose-dive into something sharp. Or some other fly-paper-induced fate that will forever mark me as the Terrible Person Who Killed The Cat With Fly-Paper. They'll have my picture at PetSmart and refuse to let me pet puppies or coo over baby bunnies. I will be...a Pet Owner Criminal.
When I finally get hold of the cat, I bring him to the sink. Steven and I both wince. Because I've got the cat, that means that Steven has to take off the fly paper. And it's just stuck in one big strip on his chest. We're both yelling and freaking out. The cat is freaking out and trying to climb up my face -- I swear a claw went up my nose. And finally, Steven gets the fly-paper off with alarming skill and seeming not really to hurt Seti all that much or tear very much hair out. In the end, I think that stuff is sticky like syrup, but not exactly like a binding glue.
"What should we do? The only thing I know to do is the thing with the olive oil. We might need to take him to the vet," Steven says.
We decide to try to olive oil, because at worst that's a bit of a laxative, and we decide it is preferable to whatever is in the flypaper goo. (Possibly toxic? Don't know!)
At some point, we trade, and Steven is holding the cat, and I'm washing the olive oil that Steven has applied off of the cat's stomach. And poor...poor Seti. He's given up by then. Just a sad-looking cat having warm water poured onto his tummy and neck, getting a bit soaped with dish-soap, and then having more water and more water again.
When he's finally finished with the emergency-bath, Seti leaps off my shoulder pretty much from the kitchen, THROUGH the dining room, and ends up in the living room. He does that weird leg-shake walk that animals do when something isn't right with their fur or skin, And despite the fetching of a towel and an attempt to towel-dry the cat, he decides he'll march around to show how he totally is above the complete embarrassment of the shenanigans which just occurred.
In the end, of course, everything is fine. Seti is still drying off. My hair is a little oily, but not sticky, and the laundry was finally folded.
Such a series of adventures and events. I can do nothing more than blame it on the evils of the HDMI cable. I THINK THE CABLE WAS PLANNING THIS DISASTER THE WHOLE TIME. So, watch out, people. HDMI cables. Not only are they overpriced, they also want to turn your cat into this:
This is a tale which begins while I am attempting to fold laundry. A whole big pile of laundry. It's phew-hot outside, and so I drop it on my bed and then attempt to turn on the TV. I thought I would watch a little random television whilst I folded the clothes. To tell the truth, it's really the only time I watch television that doesn't come from Netflix.
But, the clicker won't click, and despite some on-off-on-off of the television, I can't seem to make it work. "Aha" my 102F addled-brain declares, "We have recently installed an XBOX360. Perhaps something is...unplugged." So, I go over to look for the offending cable, which happens to be the HDMI cable. You know, the ones that cost about $8, but sell for $300 at Best Buy?
Okay, quick diversion.
Not three weeks ago, our house had a minor infestation of fruit flies. The cause turned out to be an orange that had gone a bit ripe. (How can you tell with oranges sometimes, you know? The skin stays orange, but inside it's all ooky-squish-gross.) So, we had fruit flies. And, in order to combat the fruit flies, I bought fly paper. If you've never used fly paper (and I know most of you have), it comes in a little paper roll. You pop one end of it off, pull out the coil of sticky-sticky-sticky paper, and use the included tack to hang it up. It smells nummy to flies, so they land on it and get all stuck and die a horrible gooey death.
I put up several of these around the house to get the errant fruit flies that had not yet died due to orange-removal. One of these strips I put up in our bedroom, next to the television.
I don't know why. I'm a dumbass, I guess.
So, here's me bumbling around, trying to plug in the HDMI cable, when all of a sudden...
*tunk* *hair* *sticky* *hairpull* "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
That's right. I had managed to get my hair stuck to the fly-paper.
So Steven comes running in and says, "Don't move!" I freeze in place, because so far it's only stuck to a few purple strands in front. "Okay, okay, I know how to fix it," he assures me. After prying the sticky-fly-paper off of my head (didn't hurt actually), he ushers me into the kitchen, grabs some olive oil, and has me lean over the sink. My hair gets gooped up with olive oil, and then rinsed out with dishwashing soap.
He does a pretty good job of it. No sticky left at all.
Steven and I laugh over the ordeal, and I feel relieved that my guy knows these sorts of clever things. And, thinking I am all clever too, I say to Steven, "Ah! You know, we don't have fruit flies anymore. We should take these things down before I accidentally do that to myself again."
Because I probably would.
Because if there is a table to bump my knee on, or a sharp thing to step on, or any chance of stubbing my toe, I will. I am, as they say, accident prone.
"Good idea!" Steven declares, and immediately we begin wandering the house, pulling down the six or so flypaper streamers that I've tacked to walls or whatever.
Here's a thing. I bet you didn't know that a streaming piece of curly fly-paper being taken to the trash can, all fluttery and twisty, all shiny and interesting...looks exactly like the BEST CAT TOY EVER.
EVER.
Out of nowhere, our cat Seti leaps...LEAPS across the room to catch this toy. He's a leaper, our Seti. Sometimes, he just stands next to the wall and waits for me to put my hand at progressively higher spots, and then leaps STRAIGHT UP to "catch" my hand's shadow. He can jump from a sitting position to over my head. So, when I say it was an unexpected and epic leaping, I do not much exaggerate.
So, Seti has caught a sticky piece of fly-paper. And it's sticking to his fur more and more by the moment. He quickly goes from, "OMG TOY" to "OMGWTF GET IT OFF". Unfortunately, in such a situation, the cat defies physics by being in the air, all claws, and all sticky flypaper at the same time -- but still unable to be captured by human hands.
This whole time, I am shrieking, "Oh god, Seti...no! NO!" Because I am envisioning him getting it tangled around his throat or taking a nose-dive into something sharp. Or some other fly-paper-induced fate that will forever mark me as the Terrible Person Who Killed The Cat With Fly-Paper. They'll have my picture at PetSmart and refuse to let me pet puppies or coo over baby bunnies. I will be...a Pet Owner Criminal.
When I finally get hold of the cat, I bring him to the sink. Steven and I both wince. Because I've got the cat, that means that Steven has to take off the fly paper. And it's just stuck in one big strip on his chest. We're both yelling and freaking out. The cat is freaking out and trying to climb up my face -- I swear a claw went up my nose. And finally, Steven gets the fly-paper off with alarming skill and seeming not really to hurt Seti all that much or tear very much hair out. In the end, I think that stuff is sticky like syrup, but not exactly like a binding glue.
"What should we do? The only thing I know to do is the thing with the olive oil. We might need to take him to the vet," Steven says.
We decide to try to olive oil, because at worst that's a bit of a laxative, and we decide it is preferable to whatever is in the flypaper goo. (Possibly toxic? Don't know!)
At some point, we trade, and Steven is holding the cat, and I'm washing the olive oil that Steven has applied off of the cat's stomach. And poor...poor Seti. He's given up by then. Just a sad-looking cat having warm water poured onto his tummy and neck, getting a bit soaped with dish-soap, and then having more water and more water again.
When he's finally finished with the emergency-bath, Seti leaps off my shoulder pretty much from the kitchen, THROUGH the dining room, and ends up in the living room. He does that weird leg-shake walk that animals do when something isn't right with their fur or skin, And despite the fetching of a towel and an attempt to towel-dry the cat, he decides he'll march around to show how he totally is above the complete embarrassment of the shenanigans which just occurred.
In the end, of course, everything is fine. Seti is still drying off. My hair is a little oily, but not sticky, and the laundry was finally folded.
Such a series of adventures and events. I can do nothing more than blame it on the evils of the HDMI cable. I THINK THE CABLE WAS PLANNING THIS DISASTER THE WHOLE TIME. So, watch out, people. HDMI cables. Not only are they overpriced, they also want to turn your cat into this:
