Changing the bedding in my daughter’s gerbil cage, and one of the little buggers slipped out. In a frenzy to prevent one of the cats from having a gerbil snack (they were watching very attentively), I grabbed the rodent maybe a little too hard. She slipped free. I grabbed her again. She sank her teeth into the meat of my index finger. More like a pinch than a bite, but she kept a very powerful gnawing pressure. Those teeth are not too sharp, but the jaws are strong!

I got her back in the cage, and got the bedding changed, and now I’ve got a deep black and blue, with a little hole and a few drops of blood. I’m sitting here with a throbbing finger, thinking about the early symptoms of tetanus.