A scare for Rusty and us

Our old boy Rusty is a clumsy cat. He's always been clumsy and last night was no exception. He went to sleep up on top of the coat rack in the cat bed we put up there for him (and his ^^brother^^). When he woke up and hopped down, we heard a scrabbling noise, a ker-thunk and a horrible hiss and then Rusty yowled painfully. Mr Siili and I were up and heading to the hallway halfway through all of this commotion. We didn't want to run in there to loudly and quickly because if the cat is truly hurt on top of being panicked, he might run and hurt himself more. I turn the hallway light on and see Rust huddled next to my purse (the one pictured below), still whining and acting as if he is in pain.

 As I go to gently pick Rusty up, I see he is tangled in my bag. I thought at first he just had the strap twisted around, but as I carefully move things, I see his foot is caught in the little clip on my bag.

As he jumped down to the chest of drawers, one of his toes on his left back paw got caught in the small part of the clip. It took two tries to get the clip off my bag so I could bring Rusty into my lap. Mr Siili says I became panicked at that point, which I don't feel I did. But thinking back on it, maybe my voice did become panicked, but I didn't stop carefully and semi-confidently moving. I tried to push the clip along Rusty's toe to get it in the bigger end, but it must have hurt or startled him because he yowled and struggled to get away. I caught him and kept him in my arms, but not without incurring a nice long 3-4 inch scratch on my inner thigh. After a couple more failed attempts, I just quickly pushed the clip and made it come off.

I put Rusty on the floor and Mr Siili and I huddled around him petting him. Mansi was scared too and had her tail poofed up something fierce. She calmed down and sniffed and licked her brother. Rusty wasn't happy about any of it. He went to the kitchen and ate, a lot. It's what he does when he's been traumatized.

After he ate a bit, I scooped him up and brought him into the living room to watch TV with us. He stayed on my lap for an entire show! At which point Mansi decided she had to be in the same lap as her big brother (she's a very social kitty). Big brother doesn't like sharing his lap, so he left.

Mr Siili and I were so scared something terribly bad had happened to our boy, but we were relieved it wasn't anything more than a quick fix and a scare. We are once again reminded of our clutzy kitty and that we should keep the chest of drawers clear of clutter for him.

Here's my boy getting some "mama-love". He may look a bit annoyed, but I assure you he's purring away as happy as can be.