last tuesday was a trying day, despite its its initial promise things went down hill rather quickly.
like i said, it showed promise, for once i wasnt having some nightmare involving exes or teeth falling out, of course, right before the really good part had a chance to happen...
...reality when and did that i hate, it reminded me that it does, in fact, exist. at around eight thirty, i was asleep and all warm and comfortable in my bed when...
...i was rudely awakened by a loud noise, accompanied by a sharp shooting pain in my upper thigh.
i guess i should mention that the mattress i had been sleeping on was rather old, family legend claims it was the first one my grandparents had bought. i know this sounds, well, really odd and/or disgusting, at least i can see how it would now that i have actually typed it out, but i was well taken care of and is clean. its just really really old, and eventually everything begins to fall apart. what had happened was that a spring had worn through the fabric and stabbed me, or rather hooked or corkscrewed me in the leg. looking closely at the tip i noticed it was razor sharp and curved. it explained why i had to roll the way i did to get it out.
and then it bled, a lot. i wasnt too worried at that point, i was happy that it was sorta cleaning the wound out, i did the whole antiseptic and neosporin thing and the bleeding eventually stopped and was replace by a nasty bruise. then i started doing some math: the mattress is probably at least sixty years old and i hadnt had a tetanus shot in about twenty. so i called the doctor and they told me to come in the next 24 hours, sooner would be better, and that they had a spot open at eleven. this would clash with the tuesday art time i so at the senior daycare center and i had promised a few of them that i would be there specifically as they had some great ideas they wanted to try. so i asked if there was a later time and was directed to go to a small emergency center where they accept walk-ins, and accepted my insurance. problem solved.
now this would normally be the end of the story but for the fortune cookie. after the class i stuck around to help out with the lunches and spend some time with a few of the client i didnt really have a chance to talk to earlier, at one point i went into the kitchen and saw that someone had brought a bag of fortune cookies, i asked if i could have one and was told that it was no problem. i know its kind of silly but i love those cookies, theyre pretty fun. so i grabbed one, liberated it from its plastic wrapper and proceeded to drop it.
thus began a heated excercise of "hot potato", i kept making grabs at it and only managed to keep it from hitting the floor, one of the staff was there with me and was laughing, cheering me on as i tried in vain to gain possession only to have it bounce out of my palms over and over.
finally, just as i thought i had it, it bounced out further than i could reach and i did what anyone who wasnt really thinking would do.
i lunged for it.
like i said i wasnt really thinking about it, i was reacting. had i taken a second i might have worked out that it was just a stupid cookie and that there was an entire bag of them on the counter behind me. hindsight being what it is, i know now that i really should have just let it go. so i lunged for the treat...
and stepped down unbalanced and hard on the tip of my right shoe. i felt more than heard a crack..
followed by intense pain
and watched in slow motion as my prey fell to the earth...
and shattered on the ground.
not wanting to be seen as a wimp i laughed it off and thinking that i had stubbed my toe rather badly, continued my time there for another hour or two.
after i left, i went to the clinic and got my body stabbed by metal for the second time that day. my foot still hurt, i couldnt really put weight on it, but i was more concerned with the shot and forgot to mention it.
about fifteen minutes later i was home and took off my shoes for the first time since the cookie incident, i hadnt thought it was all that bad at the time, but when i took off my sock i changed my mind. my toe was suer swollen and bruised... and crooked. so i called the doctors office... again... and asked for an appointment asap, they told me to come in the next morning and they would take a look.
on the way home i was going over the day in my head and found myself smiling. it suddenly occurred to me that several months ago i would have been angry and bitter about the whole thing, seen it all as just another way that the universe had it out for me. im not saying that im glad it happened, its a pain in the ass, (and foot... puns intended.) but i was okay with it.
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