I couldn't have been much older than three. We'd just moved to Paris, and it would take me awhile to get acclimated. But I did like the cafes - even as a child, there was so much to look at. I remember this one time my father, my sister and I were seated at a table inside at one of the posh spots. We were new to the city, so we were still going to the places where you would want to be seen.
My father told my sister and me that my mother was outside looking at a picture of a cheetah. Or at least that's what i thought he said. As it turned out, she was photographing one - some crazy Parisian (not all Parisians are crazy, mind you) was taking his "pet" cheetah out for a walk and had stopped by the cafe to have a drink.
I ran out to see the picture for myself before my father could stop me. Just as I passed the doorway leading to the outside, the cheetah, thinking I was some sort of toy, grabbed me in its paws and started batting me around. Before my father could rescue me, it had gotten one good bite on my knee.
This is the part of the story that doesn't really make sense. My father had just begun working as a doctor at Pasteur Institutes where, ironically, Louis Pasteur had discovered the vaccine for rabies some years before. The vaccine back when I got bitten consisted of a very painful series of shots to the stomach - our neighbor, Ben Myers, had had the shots after a squirrel bit him the same year he flew off his dresser and broke his collarbone. To make a long story short, my parents decided against the shots and opted to see if I ended up foaming at the mouth, instead. I am happy to report that it is many years later and I am rabies free. Oh, and I still love cheetahs, though I limit my contact to that of the visual nature these days.