Playing Footsie

The next day is no better. Hungover and hobbled. Truly a vision of loveliness.

But I have lunch plans with a lovely woman who chairs a board I sat on for three years and who had given me a wonderful reference for the job I was about to start. I have to get my act together.

I desperately want to wear flip flops but shower shoes would surely be shunned in the Ladies Who Lunch circle. And it has begun to get cold. I'd look like an ass no matter what. And sandals are no better an option in the brisk weather. Even if I did have a pair that matched well with a fall outfit.

Limping up the stairs to the finished attic where my ridiculously large cedar closet can be found, I set about my mission for Fall Shoes That Do Not Cause Excruciating Pain and Mental Suffering By Their Mere Placement on One's Feet. You'd think this would be easy. I am sure I'd find Jimmy Hoffa's carcass sooner.

Then, in a cast off pile of Things I Morbidly Regret Buying and a bin of Items I May Have Purchased Whilst Stoned on Cold Medicine, I spot them. Black leather mules. Sensible heel. Cheap Leather. Square toe that gets lazy and rounds its edges. Truly hideous. But backless and low enough that I can actually drag my foot behind me (again, like Quasimodo) without waving my arms like an acrobat. The picture of I'm Injured But I Won't Admit It Discretion.

I build a reasonable outfit around the tragic footwear. I am camouflaging genius. Now if I could only refrain from wincing.

Walking is painful.
Driving is painful.
The hem of my pants scraping like a metal file across the tender skin of my heel is painful.

I have wine with lunch. I nearly dunk the foot into the wine, I am so desperate.

But do I pick up the phone and call the doctor? No. I let the weekend come so that it is nearly impossible to get an appointment unless there is an actual limb in some late stage of being severed from one's body. I consider doing the hacking myself.

I convince myself that the weekend will bring a miracle recovery. It is just a deeply bruised wound that began as a blister.

A festering, hot, angry-looking blister that has become the size of Billings, Montana.

I convince myself that those gummy-looking bandages that are designed to pamper your every blister and a tube of Neosporin are all I need.

Even as I hop on one foot through the pharmacy aisles of Target in search of these items. And a jumbo bottle of Tylenol.

I go home and peel my sock from my gross, oozing foot. It is practically a zombie foot. Only then does the word "gangrene" scamper across my synapses. I swear to myself as cheerfully as possible to push the thought from my head.

I wash my foot with antibacterial soap that smells like peaches. It does nothing to improve the foul mood I'm in.

I carefully dry my whole foot and then vow to burn the towel in the fireplace lest I spread disease throughout the house.

I smear Neosporin generously on what now looks like a foot formed out of partially cooked bacon.

I carefully glue on one of those awkward blister bandages. I actually need two.

And as I look down to admire my handiwork, I think for just a moment that my foot looks like one of those cartoon feet upon which someone has dropped an anvil.

From a cliff.