Hakuna matata

I'm going in for open heart surgery tomorrow.

Not, really. I have this problem. When you kids were little, I would be the scary monster and chase you down the hall. You would sneak up on me while I was shaving in the bathroom, covered in shaving cream and try to scare me, but I could see you coming in the mirror. So I'd drop my razor and go after you growling. Once, I went around the corner and clipped my right little toe on the door jamb and it went out at 90 degrees and immediately turned black. Oh, and it hurt. I mean I could see stars. Of course, Mom's solution was to press on it real hard with a wet cloth. Or put Windex on it. Something.

"My toe is broken! Look at it!"
"They can't do anything for a broken toe. They'll just put a popsicle stick between them and wrap tape around them."
"No! They have to, like, bend it back onto my foot or something. I mean, c'mon. Look at it!"
"Baby."
"Fine. I'll drive myself to the hospital."
"Oh, get in the car. I'll drive....baby.

So we dropped off the kids at neighbors and I was called a big baby all the way to the ER.

Mom walked in ahead of me because she is mean, and I hobbled in, wincing, limping, finally dragging myself across the cigarette butt-strewn parking lot, laden with oil spots and old puke stains to the doors. A nice lady smoking a cigar waved her hand in front of the electric eye for me and refrained from kicking me as I pulled myself hand over agonizing hand into the room. Dogs licked my wounds and children mocked me.
At least I had a lot of hair.

When I got to the desk nurse, Mom had already talked to the nurse about my poor toe and, naturally, they just laughed and swapped childbirth stories. I could hear the nurse asking something like "Did you tell him to put a wet cloth on and push down real hard?"

I crawled to the chair and pulled myself up into it. I told the nurse I had broken my little toe off. She said, "All we're going to to is put a splint between them and tape them up. You can do that at home."

I pulled my leg up and placed my foot on the counter. By this time, the toe was as big around as, say, a telephone pole and was turning all the colors of the rainbow and shimmering, pulsing, and making a humming noise. I think it also had little sparks shooting off of it.

Mom smirked and look sideways at the nurse as if to say, "My husband....sheesh."

But the nurse, to her eternal credit, went goggle eyed and her jaw dropped, and she said, "Oh, geez. You'd better come back here."

She actually got me a wheelchair and I think she was gagging. Pretty bad for a battle hardened nurse, doncha think?

So they ended up resetting it, which made a lot of noise as the bones crunched and grinded against each other and the sparks turned into a mushroom cloud. They had to wrap up my foot and give me a walking boot and crutches. I must say, I began to feel vindicated. Not smug, not smug. Just humbled that Mom would finally admit: Ok, your owie is bad.

No such luck.

She said, "I suppose for the next two weeks you are gonna play this up."

All I could do was sigh and whimper.

Well, this same thing happened to both toes a few more times both from being a scary monster with no coordination and from kung fu, so my toes became ragged stumps and now they just get in the way. I can't wear certain shoes and often just go shuffling around in my slippers, even at work. That's not so bad, but the bathrobe makes my boss upset, sometimes. I guess I could tie it shut.

So I have "hammer toes" where the tendon has pulled the toe up into an arch. They are going to go in, cut out the middle knuckle, cut the tendon, put a pin in each toe, which sticks out the end of the toe, then re-attach the tendons. My toes will be shorter, but will lay flat. Then after a few weeks in a wooden sandals, I'll have the pins removed.

The doc also says I have arthritis in all my toes. That explains a lot, since Mom will walk by and pull my toes and when i scream in pain, she just looks at me and says, "Baby." Now she'll be sorry. Maybe. Nah.

The only reason I'm still alive is because some nice lady smoking a cigar opened a door for me at a hospital in Olympia, Washington in 1991.

Circle of life, baby, circle of life. Hakuna matata.