CLODHOPPER VELCRO BOOTIE TIME

I come home Friday after a long day at school, and I start working on more stuff that I need to have done for Monday, finally wrapping up for the evening after midnight.  Crawling into bed around 1:00 a.m., I decide that I'd really like to wake up to daylight instead of an alarm in the darkness, so I get up and open the blinds in the bedroom.  Saturday morning sunshine will be fabulous.

Even better, though, is the light that comes in from the window in the room connected to my bedroom.  I might as well open that blind, as well, so I get up, pull open the blinds, and start (a little too excitedly) heading back to bed.  The lights are off, and I'm in a fine mood: my work is about 75% done, and I'm going to sleep until the morning light wakes me.  Life is going to be...

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

I forget that there is a bag of holiday gifts on the floor in front of the closet that separates the two rooms.  The fourth toe on my left foot catches something that absolutely does not move, which causes said toe to snap up and out of its socket, and I use the word "snap" not only as a verb but as a double onomatopoeia because I hear the loudly audible SNAP SNAP of the bones separating.

Once I can breathe again, I look down to see that the toes on my left foot are now making the Vulcan greeting sign.  I've dislocated and broken toes before, many times, more times than I should probably admit.  It's the curse of having creepily long toes mixed with a huge lack of coordination.  Never the graceful one, I've snapped toes wearing open-toed shoes, in sports, and catching them barefoot on pieces of furniture.

Snapping a toe on a bag of gifts?  This is a new one.

I am so pissed off at myself that I refuse to do much triage beyond popping the toe back into its socket (to the best of my ability).  In my experience, the few moments of intense and breath-stopping pain at my own hand is far better than the pain of waiting, going to the walk-in, and having some ER doctor forcibly put the joint back to its original position.  I'm not entirely certain that the toe is indeed back where it came from, but my foot now looks like it's just waving a little bit as opposed to making the Vee for Victory salute.

The following day I clean up my foot and wrap it.  The pain is intense enough that I dig out an old surgical bootie and my crutches.  Walking on it is painful but workable (slowly and carefully), and the swelling isn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be.  Thirty hours post-snapsnap, my foot is slightly puffy, red and purple, and the hematoma has spread to the middle toe and the second toe.  In other words, I have a very colorful few days coming on.

Of course I attempt to stuff my foot into a shoe, but that's not happening.  Looks like I might have to be a clodhopper in a Velcro bootie for another day or two, which means that my idiocy will have to be explained at work on Monday.  I suppose I could just say that I broke a toe in a couple of places and call it a day.  I also suppose the inevitable "how" question can be avoided if I just say that I caught it on something.

But truly, who breaks a toe on a bag of gifts while trying to open blinds so the sun can shine in five hours later simply because it's the weekend?

Oh, wait.  That would be me.