Let's Make A Deal

Since all bad news tends to land in one big shit pile, it makes perfect sense that it would be Lars on the other end of the phone. The Ladies in White leave to discuss my necrotic limb.

He needs to come over to get Pat for some project he's helping him with (Pat is 15. Unless he is building a model of the Space Shuttle to scale, I doubt that there is any parental input needed for any project the school can dream up as a method of torture.)

Can he come over and get him after dinner?

Well yes, but dinner is sort of up in the air at the moment, considering the Ladies in White are about to throw a net over my head.

I contemplate the loaded question.

"Well, you can...but we have not eaten dinner yet. I am not home."

He immediately assumes I am consumed with my new job and ignoring the children because I like the people at work better. It's his rallying cry. And how he justifies that he hasn't worked a full day since Jesus wore short pants.

As he sighs that sigh that suggests that I am a hopeless excuse for a parent, I tell him that I am at the doctors with a foot injury and that they are not sure I do not need to be admitted. I purposely leave out the details of said injury. Let him think that I mangled a limb with the lawn mower. A blister gone awry seems so pathetic and avoidable. He'd just heap on more blame.

He asks if he should pick up the children.

Of course he does. If I am discharged and sent home, it would be a most safe and caring thing to do to ensure that I suffer and die alone. Who needs company during times of pain and suffering anyway?

I tell him I need to call Pat and Hil and tell them to make a pizza for dinner and to please not argue over which one. And that I will call when I am on my way home, because darn it, I am not taking a spin in the ambulance to the ER to be admitted for a blister.

Hil reads me like a book when I call. Asks if I am coming home at all. She must share some DNA with Charlotte. Never misses a trick, even if I am doing my darndest to sound cheerful to the point of mania.

The Ladies In White return. I immediately launch into a diatribe about my new job and kids at home. Play the single mother card. I have cats. One is blind!!!!

They are shaking their heads. I am frantically devising an escape plan, even though my pants remain slung over a pleather chair.

Thankfully, they are Let's Make A Deal gals. They will write a sky-high dose of an antibiotic if I promise and swear to keep an appointment they are making for me to return on Saturday afternoon.

I raise my hand, Girl Scout style, and swear on everything I know to be holy.

I snatch the script, put on my pants, grab my purse and run out the door. I hand my business card to the rude job seeker and disappear into the night.

I am running so fast I do not even realize that my foot is throbbing and feels like I just ran across hot coals.

I hesitate at the car door.

Am I making a huge mistake?

One Foot Out The Door

Not that I am a mind reader, but Charlotte clearly meant business. If she did not already have her Spidey senses on high alert, she would have just said she was checking in. This was a specific question. Her way of simply beginning to scratch the surface.

Channeling Florence Nightingale, for sure, she had heard me mention the foot at least a dozen times, seen me wince in uncharacteristic pain a few more times, and had mentally filed through her 3 by 5 cards of nursing school notes to assess the situation. She doesn't need to diagnose. She just needs to know it falls outside the range of normal.

Please. I spend two thirds of every day outside the range of normal. This should shock no one.

I call her. I can hear her figuratively tapping the toe of her white-shoed foot on the kitchen tiles.

I downplay the situation.

She's odnto me in a minute. I am like the diabetic who ate the Twinkie and is standing there holding the cellophane wrapper claiming to have no idea why their sugars would be off the charts.

Can you send me a picture?

Eeeeewwww. I don't even want to look at it much less take an police photo of the crime scene. Yuck.

She asks me if it is hot.

Hot, well, no. Hotter than the foot that is not propped up on the trash can, yes. But hot is a relative word. What do you mean by "hot" exactly? How hot is too hot. Feelin' hot, hot hot!

She takes that "Don't make me call you an idiot" tone I can recognize in the lowest of volumes. "Liza....."

OK OK OK. I will find an urgent care facility on the way home. I will drive there with my 2-pounds-of-ground-chuck foot and let them grimace and quickly write a barely legible script just to get me to put my sock back on and leave. They are unaccustomed to such gore at the Urgent Care. They are more the Strep Throat culture threshold for grossness.

Charlotte is not convinced. Calls me on the way to make sure my car doesn't accidentally just take me home.

I check in. I give the lady at the desk my information. She asks for a job with my company. Off to a great start. No one cares about my foot but Charlotte.

I limp to the pleather chairs area and sit down. Suze Orman is yakking about financial stability in that preachy voice of hers. I find a magazine and engross myself in a 3 month old article about Matthew McConaughey.

I get called in just when the article begins to get interesting. It is the way the world works. Walk away from the elevator to take the stairs and suddenly the elevator will appear.

I am asked all the usual questions. Am measured for height and weight and get my blood pressure and temperature taken. Nothing to write home about.

The Medical Assistant asks me what I am there for and then asks me to remove my sock. And then my other sock.

Practically fainting from the sight, she leaves the room and returns with the Nurse Practitioner. She looks at my foot. I look at my foot. It is even looking more spiffy now that it has spent the day in black wool socks. A little black lint does a lot to improve the appearance of an inflamed body part, in case you ever need to know that.

She pokes and squeezes and pricks the heel with all manner of instruments. I look away secretly wishing I'd brought the Matthew McConaughey article into the exam room (with all its germs.)

Once the NP is happy with the volume of goo she's been able to render from my ailing limb, she leaves the room.

A few minutes later a doctor comes in. She goes through largely the same exam with a little less emphasis on getting blood from the stone my foot is rapidly becoming. She looks at my good foot. She looks at my face and my eyes. She checks all my glands, which against all logic, requires me to take off my pants. I am sure I am in some kind of alien experiment.

She leaves. Both ladies come back in after what seems like an hour.

They look at each other and then to me. I am sure I am about to be told I have gangrene and there is an amputation in my near future.

One decides it is her responsibility to speak.

"We are on the fence. We think we may need to admit you for IV antibiotics."

As I swoon, my phone begins to ring.

Playing Footsie

Thank God for offices with a Casual Attire dress code. Most places are too afraid to do that. Most employers have such a lack of confidence in their employees that they demand a more formal appearance, expecting that most people will fall woefully below the bar. If they lower the bar, it would be fashion anarchy. Tube tops. Daisy Dukes. Flip flops. Heaving cleavage. Muffin tops spilling out over the waistbands of too-tight jeans matched with belly shirts worn by people who have no business owning belly shirts, given the conditions of their bellies.

But my new employer has no such reservations. One of my Chiefs interviewed me in jeans. They were snazzy jeans he no doubt picked up on Rodeo but jeans nonetheless. These folks are given credit for knowing how to walk around in public and rarely disappoint. Don't get me wrong, most people are not forging new standards of fashion and churning out the hype on grooming, but everyone is generally neat and clean, reasonably pressed, matching and wearing shoes that were purchased in the current decade. (There is that one chick who is always dressed for a yoga class, but at least she rocks the look instead of looking like the yoga pants were the only ones she could manage to yank across her ass without splitting.) Yes, our only rules for dress code are about flip flops and ripped jeans. As in "Don't wear them." Pretty easy. My work wardrobe has expanded exponentially with that little bit of clarification. Time to burn the suits.

but even so, on Day 2, with my left foot now looking alarmingly like a bone-in spiral cut glazed ham, I stand in the gaping yaw of my closet and stare blankly and defeatedly at the tonnage of clothing. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, leaps into my arms begging to be worn.

I hobble to the window to survey the weather. It is cloudy and gray and a little bit chilly. Very helpful. We'll rule out the sleeveless items. Next!

I start with shoes. Anything that won't send my nerve endings into a tailspin is too casual. Except perhaps the tragic mules I wore to lunch the week before. Ugh. I had hoped to establish myself as an office fashion icon, not a matronly, frowzy, elastic waist-banded Mom Jean owner. How will anyone know I am a snappy dresser if they avert their eyes from this day forward because I disappointed on Day 2. Day 2! I didn't even keep up the momentum for a week!

But I have no choice. I must build yet another outfit around Les Chaussures Horrible. Damn it.

Let's continue the process of elimination with the pants. Cross anything that needs ironing off the list. I can't walk ALL THE WAY OVER THERE to iron anything. The ironing board is on the opposite corner of the house. I am not crossing the Prime Meridian until my foot shrivels up and falls off.

Anything that with a length or color that does not align with the tragic footwear is out. I have exactly 2 pair.

Onto blouses and sweaters. Eliminating those that need ironing once again, and those that don't match with the scant selection of pants, proves to be quite effective at whittling things down to a manageable selection. Exactly 4.

One I hate.
One needs a particular undergarment that is currently drying on the line in the cellar.
One has a very dangly, loose button that will surely fall off as soon as I step into the elevator where it will conveniently roll down the shaft.

I guess I am a Woman in Black. Black wool turtleneck and black slacks and plain black shoes. All I need is a wimple and a big, giant, iron crucifix for around my neck. I am The Limping Nun.

Slowly, slowly, slowly I get the kids to the car and off to school. Drive with my good foot to work. Limp into the building. Fire up my laptop at my desk. Turn my trash can over and take off my left shoe. I prop the ham up on the can. My phone dings.

Charlotte.

What is going on with your foot?

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.

Leap of Faith

My first day of work at my new job is looming.

My left foot has taken on the size, shape and texture of a 3 pound ring baloney.

My first day outfit is in jeopardy. I can not bear to imagine jamming the ring baloney into a sassy pair of new boots with a 3 inch heel. The idea that shoes that have not been sufficiently broken in would touch the exposed nerve endings of my foot sends me sailing over the edge of reason. The thought of anything except bedroom slippers actually does exactly the same thing. I wonder if it is too late to get those hideous pumps they used to advertise by showing a bunch of women playing basketball in them?

I simply can not part with the dress. It is too cool. But the boots are what make it so fabulous. Without the boots, it's just a dress. A cute dress, but dainty, little ho-hum pumps would not do it justice. Kick ass boots seem more like justice.

Even as my foot throbs and sends shooting pain into my calf, I am indecisive.

I am sure there is a name for this. I am sure it is a name in a big, fat volume full of names of diagnosable mental disorders. I swear I'd wear shoes that felt like razor blades if they made my legs look great and pulled a look together flawlessly. So what if I am wincing and the circulation to my toes has been violently pinched off?

The morning comes. I have a choice to make. I have paperdolls with different combinations in my head. I can not decide.

I tap on Hil's door. She's thrilled to see me up and looking presentable from the shoulders up before school (I'd relaxed a little with the hair and makeup routine to be honest. Why waste a blob of anti-frizz creme when the only exciting thing you'll be doing is hiking in the woods? The squirrels wouldn't notice if I showed up naked.)

I tell her my dilemma. I pull out an alternative outfit. She knits her brow and glares up at me in pure disbelief. "You'd wear THAT on your first day?"

I pull out the original dress. As I pull out the pumps she tells me not to bother. "You are sooooo not wearing those things."

I pull out a different pair of boots. A tall black pair I've had for years. Italian. Stylish. Broken in like a favorite pair of sneakers. But black. And ordinary. And they don't pick subtly pick up the little swipes of color in the fabric the way the other boots do.

And then I tell her my original plan. Hang the dress on the door and pull out The Boots.

Hil has a visceral reaction. Can't avert her gaze. Has to touch them. She's stammering.

They are really cool.

When Hil regains her ability to speak, she gushes that she HAS to see the whole outfit on me.

I was afraid she'd say that. I go into my room and hang up my robe carefully. And slowly unbutton the dress on its hanger. I am dragging my feet. Literally and figuratively.

I put on the dress.

I put on the right boot. It is on the foot that does not look like it was roasted over a spit the night before.

Now the left.

Oh.
My.
Gawd!

It is so excrutiating that I nearly do not go through with it. If I get the boot on, I am not sure I'll have the nerve to get it off. Scraping the back of the boot across my leperous heel is about as appealing as home dentistry.

I hobble out to show Hil.

She beams. "Mom! That HAS to be what you wear! You look like you're in charge. You know, but nice. And fun."

Yes. In charge. And nice. And fun. And a good candidate for conscious sedation.

But the outfit is on me. And so it shall stay. And even though I wince with every step, I am stepping out into a brand new life today. And where my foot causes me to hesitate and look before I leap, my heart is ready for whatever lies on the horizon.

Shame and the Shameless

Meanwhile, as my foot was decaying conveniently in advance of my actual death, my support hearing with Lars was looming.

I'd been unemployed for nearly five months and Lars had deftly avoided paying me so much as one thin dime, all the while insisting that that he really, really, really didn't want things to be difficult for me. (Well okay, then, asswipe. Stop letting your lawyer continue the hearings and start paying up. Here's an idea: negotiate. And open your friggin' check book for once, Bargain Basement Bonehead.)

But his lawyer, Randeeee took the attitude that it was I who was causing the hardship. Lars was truly suffering without his monthly pile of free cash. All I had to do was live at the poverty level. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezey. Poor Lars was probably struggling to pay his bar tab. Such a pity. Randeeee regularly called my lawyer to grouse that I was not looking hard enough for a job. And probably billed Lars in 6 minute increments to make the call.

It is so easy to envision raking your fingernails down some people's faces.

And me, being a model citizen (when I try) delayed my start date at my fabulous new job just to avoid having to interrupt my first week with a road trip to the courthouse.

And yet, Randeeee had the unbridled nerve to continue the hearing again. Gave some bogus excuse and followed it with "Is she working YET????" in a voice that could only have resulted from gargling with Drain-O.

Well played, douchebag. You win. I get back to work and Lars never has to part with anything but a few dollars in arrears. And it will just be netted out of the payments I'll eventually owe to him in tiny little increments stretched out over months since he was not technically a deadbeat. Just a weasel. Nothing illegal about being a weasel. He better sleep with one eye open. Karma casts a long shadow.

I am twisted with rage over this last continuation. I know the plan that Randeeee and Lars have hatched is perfectly legal. It can not be found to be contemptuous. But it flies in the face of everything I know about being a parent and being a human being.

It was more important to them to keep all of Lars money in the bank than to provide for my children. They both pretend to have only the loftiest of intentions. Lars only asks for support so he can properly care for the children. But all that logic goes out the window when my caring for them in the manner to whihc they've become accustomed has become financially impossible for me.

They both pretend that I would prefer to take food from my children's mouths and deprive them of essential needs than to part with a portion of my paycheck. When really, it is simply that Lars is a taker. He earns a fine living. He could earn a better living, but he's just lazy. He'd rather have me work hard and sponge off of me like a barnacle. It's not like he works at a car wash. He's a licensed medical professional. With a decent paycheck. He just thinks he's entitled to part of mine. It's despicable. I don't know how he looks at himself in the mirror without wincing. I suppose shame is nothing knew to him.

And Randeeee is the worst kind of lawyer. She's the type of lawyer that gives lawyers a bad name. She creates an intense sense of confusion and insecurity and suspicion so Lars will never make a move without her. He won't make a decision and won't agree to anything. Won't collaborate, won't cooperate, won't do the right thing. And she bills him for every phone call, note and document. Holding him hostage with her sense of superiority. And holding his wallet hostage too. So he feels like he has to reach into mine. That he's ENTITLED to reach into mine.

OK, Miss Grabbypants. You won this round. I hope you enjoy the moment. The truth of the matter is that your need to win has overshadowed your sense of purpose as counsel in a divorce proceeding. Your preoccupation with destroying your opponent has rendered you blind to the carnage in your wake.

And Hil and Pat are the latest victims. How dare you deprive them of the very "equality of lifestyle" that the concept of Child Support is based upon. Shame on you, Randeeee, for insisting that this happen. And more shame on you, Lars, for letting it.

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.