Finding Achilles' heel

So yesterday, I go into the podiatrist for a routine procedure. I have curiously screwed up toes on my left foot; they always rest akimbo, with two leaning to the left and two leaning to the right. This results in the squashing of my fourth toe -- for years, I've been unable to keep nail polish on it for more than a day because my third toe will step on it and buff the polish right off.

In the past, this made a slightly uninteresting party tale. However, that changed when I went for a run back in May; about halfway through, I felt a shooting pain in my foot. I couldn't exactly stop, since I was a couple miles from home, so I ran back to the house and took off my shoe...the toe of my sock was a nice tomato red...suffice it to say that my third toe decided to beat the fourth one into submission. I spent the rest of the night trying to relieve pressure from the toenail digging into my skin.

So, yesterday, they cut one of the tendons on the bottom of my toe. The theory is that snipping it will cause the top portion of my toe to relax and flex up from under its neighbor.

The best part? I was privileged enough to go home with a stylish black bootie which I get to wear for the next 10 days! I can wear it everywhere: on a (very slow) walk, as a mate to the sexy kitten heeled sandal on my right foot, to the P-patch and the beach...My husband finds this incredibly amusing. He keeps hobbling next to me whenever we walk anywhere, saying things like, "Wanna race?" and giggling hysterically. Coalescent Boy also takes tremendous pleasure in joking about my "shower bag," a piece of blue plastic designed to keep my foot dry. According to him, it makes me look like I have a tortoise foot (read: big, clubby and relatively useless). He wants to incorporate it into a Halloween costume this year. If he can unwrap it from his neck in time, he's welcome to it.

This from the man I nursed to health after his knee surgery two years ago. Might I remind him that I did not laugh at all, even when we went for some air after his operation, which happened to fall on Halloween. As my Vicodin-intoxicated boyfriend limped unsteadily around Greek Row on his crutches, we passed a group of frat boys heading to a nearby costume party. One looked wide-eyed at Coalescent Boy and said, "Dude, he's dressed up like a gimp!" Coalescent Boy was in too much of a drug-induced haze to hear anything -- so I'm sure his constant egging now is only done to ensure that I don't miss any witticisms that fly my way. Awww, and he just walked by to ask, "How's my little cripple?" Thanks, sweetie. That's why I married ya'.