Watch Your Step

I spent parts of my childhood watching my step, literally. Our cat liked to hide behind the dust ruffles of beds and surprise us with the swipe of a paw as we walked by. This scared the crap out of me. Bad enough that I had to get finger sticks to get blood drawn at the pediatrician's office; I didn't want a sharp claw at my ankle too, in the safety of my own home. I loved cats, but hated when they startled me.

Then there was the time my dad accidentally, with his full body weight, stepped on our cat as the cat laid unwittingly in the doorway to the garage. He cursed at the cat, I'm sure, then solemnly returned to the house and told my brother and me that the cat might die. It had run off into a corner of the garage, not looking well, but it ended up being fine. "Guts of steel," my dad said.

Still, I remain wary of cats being too underfoot. When the friendly neighborhood calico starts following me on the sidewalk, I try to speed-walk away from it without turning back (after giving it coos and pets, of course), but I can't help looking back every few moments, like a person on the lam checking the rearview to see if that cop is still behind me. I know that an over-eager cat could suddenly appear at my feet, and I'm afraid that in doing so, it may get caught in the upswing of a leg and get inadvertently kicked. My own cat does this surprise-appearance thing all the time in the course of tailing me through the house and chirping requests for things unknown. He has a special talent for coming from behind to race me through a doorway, brushing against my leg and somehow, with his nine furry pounds of body weight, nearly knocking me over. "Dammit, cat!" is an epithet I shout at least four times a week.

As an adult, I can still be jump-scared, but instead of acting frightened I just get aggravated. What an inconvenience to be reminded that I still have half a lizard brain, which interprets ordinary creatures as boogeymen when they come at me without warning. My own husband has made me leap with fright by merely entering a room that I thought was empty, or coming from a different angle than where I expected him. He doesn't understand why this scares me. I think it's because I want to travel unencumbered, psychically and otherwise. I want to be free to cogitate on Very Important Business.

It is also Very Important to my brain that I maintain a sense of control over my environs. I'd like to know who's in the room and how to position myself so I can see them. I want food, drink, and/or blankets within reach. I need to see what's in my path so I can get to Point B as quickly as possible ... just in case. I don't want to be flustered by a shadowy figure, even if it's my husband, or the furry flash of an animal at my feet, even a tame one who's more likely to be injured by me than the other way around. Please, no reminders of the fact that my nerves can betray me.