One Foot In Front Of The Other

While I was busy flying, I was also developing quite a nice blister on my foot. New shoes, many miles. Not always a great combination.

But my older shoes were damp from a recent walk that had begun in sunshine and had ended in rain, so they had not been an option.

And the only other shoes I own for this purpose are those "tone up" shoes. The ones that promise to make you flex all the right muscles and achieve perfectly toned pairs of thighs, calves and butt cheeks just by walking around. The calves, thighs and butt cheeks of the girl in the commercial make a decent argument. She looks gorgeous yet avoids looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger's twin sister.

Perhaps normal walking around would achieve such things. Athletic waling around does nothing of the kind. The last time I put those implements of torture on my feet I had hiked eleven miles. My ass still hasn't forgiven me.

But I pushed onward in the new shoes, against my better judgment. Blister, schmister. I've had at least a thousand of them.

This one however, was different. Right out of the gate it was different.

First of all, it was huge. At least the size of a silver dollar.

And it was deep. I felt like if I poked it I could touch a bone, which frankly, skeeved me a whole lot to think about.

And it hurt. A lot. I was limping like Quasimodo within hours.

And then it popped. Well, more like exploded. I will spare you the gory details. Let's just say it was not my finest moment as a squeamish person.

I felt like an invalid. I have walked nearly 1,000 miles this summer, in all manner of weather and terrain, and days before starting a new job, I hobble myself with a completely preventable injury. WTF?

And I feel like a two year old. Am I really whining about a blister? (and in my head, my mother's melodious voice threatens to give me something to really whine about.)

But I have things to do, so I ignore it. I put on a cute outfit and sandals with no backs and join Charlotte and a few cousins who are gathering at a pub to celebrate my new job. I will just wash down a few Tylenol caplets with my beer. I won't have a throbbing foot and I will deftly avoid a hangover. I am so clever making the Tylenol pull double duty.

But at some point in the evening, in one of my less graceful moments, I am certain, I prang my heel on the rung of the bar stool. At the same precise moment, my cousin whacks her knee on the table leg. We both yelp in pain. She is sure that her knee cap has split in two and I am convinced that some portion of my foot is lying on the floor, loose from its moorings.

Charlotte looks at us like we've gone mad, but the knee cap whacking is universally understood and she assumes that we've both sustained the same injury, so I don't immediately need to explain the real source of pain.

Even as I sit there, foot throbbing and unaffected by the magic of Tylenol and alcohol, I wonder if I should say something to Charlotte.

But I am not quite ready to face the reality that will inevitably follow when she decides to pin that nursing cap on her head and have a look at what used to pass as a human foot. If I close my eyes and ignore it, it will surely go away.

Right?