A New Day Dawns

Starting a new job, no matter how exciting, is exhausting. Even more so if you have been at home keeping your own calendar, coming and going as you please, sleeping til whenever, going to bed at O-dark-thirty, and generally living the life of a dog. No regimentation. Just the basics. I sleep when and where I want to, eat when I feel like it, and the rest of the day is determined by when I get to go out and what I find to play with in the yard.

So throbbing, swollen, misshapen foot aside, I am just plain old tired at the end of Day 1. I have met dozens of shiny new people who are all anxious to meet me and who can remember my name. I have no idea who any of them are and why they should be important to me.

My brain is cranking. I am trying to remember where the ladies room is, where I need a badge to get through the door, the locations of conference rooms, the names of people who report to me and what they are supposed to do in a day's time, and all manner of other details, to say nothing of having to figure out who everyone is talking about when they only use first names and I am not even sure I know enough to care if "Mike went ballistic and chucked a gift mug filled with mints through his monitor and shorted out the entire right side of the network."

I limp. I wince. I walk on just the toes of my left foot. I give myself Charlie horses and cramps. I look like a spaz. No one notices the cool boots I am sure because of all the distractions I was causing with my prancercizing about the office pretending not to be in searing pain.

But the day ends soon enough. My head is full of new names and new information. Most of it will fly out the back of my head by the time I am home thanks to the brain-scrambling focus on the desire to rip the cool boots of my burning left foot.

In a synaptic misfire that only those at death's door experience, I briefly think, "I should watch the movie My Left Foot" just so my actual left foot can see what it is missing by being incapacitated. "If you'd hurry up and heal, maybe I'd let you play with paints, too."

I hobble to the door of my house at a glacial pace. I am tired. I am injured. I am a shadow of my former self.

I am greeted at the door by an adoring Hil and Pat, who have taken it upon themselves to start warming one of the dinners I've prepared in advance. I am grateful. Not only for the help but for the ability to refrain from standing at the stove.

I literally sit down on the door mat and begin to pry off my boots. Right one first because it is easy.

Then the left. I half expect the foot to come off in the boot and remain behind.

I won't go into detail. Let's just say, it was hard to look at.

And yet I still think I should throw on my running shoes and head to the track. Somehow the poisons of infection have pickled my brain.

Instead, I run warm water into a bucket. I pour a few tablespoons of baking soda into it. I stand in the bucket at the sink in my work dress. And I pour myself a martini.

God only knows what I am going to do tomorrow.

But I do know this.

I am not going to call the doctor.