Sitting in an empty room with all the windows smashed

I really don't like having my feet touched. Like REALLY. While I understand the necessity of a pedicure, I can really only endure them once a year. The results are lovely, but 45 minutes of of someone touching my feet is enough to make me lose my mind. My life has not been without it's moments of discomfort, but one of the worst was having my feet put in plaster molds for my first set of orthodics. Having happy feet was well worth it, but goodness did that plaster ever make me want to scream, kick and cry.

So why am I sharing this with the world at large? It's not like I'm having to fight off random foot massages on the street. I'm giving everyone a little context so that you all won't yell at me for the slightly stupid thing I did this week.

Tuesday morning, while putting away the clean dishes I broke a glass. It was early, the hand-eye coordination wasn't there, these things happen. I wouldn't say that glass got everywhere, but it was damn close. I wasn't fully awake, so I did a poor clean up job. And how do I know this, because I got a nice shard of glass in the ball of my right foot.

Now it didn't hurt all the time. I would only feel it once in awhile and it would hurt like hell, but it wasn't constant and I could walk on it pretty easily. Why didn't I remove it? Well, it was clear glass and I actually couldn't find it. I could see where it was irritating the skin, but despite my efforts I could not extricate it. I must add that as the seasons are changing my feet are peeling like a stripper from Montreal. With all these variables, I wasn't having much luck and I could walk, so really, intervention was not required. Foot touching could be avoided.

So we come to the end of the day Thursday and Jenn catches me in a moment where I can really feel the shard. I'm wincing and limping a little and she asks me what's up. I tell her and she, rightly, scares the crap out of me by using words like infection, fester and stupid girl. She wisely walks me over to a walk-in clinic near work and moves a step closer to sainthood and now has my eternal gratitude for waiting with me for my turn with the doctor.

I eventually get into the exam room and start apologizing profusely for how horrible my feet are and how bad I feel about exposing the doctor to my peeling in the hope that he will be so afraid of my feet that he dares not touch them. He's a pro and he's wise to my game, tells me my feet are fine and that it's not a problem. So much for that tactic. Still I don't give up and proceed to apologize for my feet every time he touches them, like saying sorry makes it feel less wrong.

Basically he has to use a razor to get the shard out of my foot. He's not totally confident that it will come out today and I may have to come back next week when the glass has worked it's way further out of my foot. Like I was going to have to go back to have my feet touched again, HA! Silly doctor.

The poor man had to scrape many, many layers of skin off (layers of skin that wouldn't not be an issue if I was a good girl who got pedicures and wasn't afraid of her pumice stone), but then interrupted me mid-bad-foot-apology to tell me that something came out. Praise your deity of choice, I was free of the glass, no one was touching my foot anymore and I had managed to avoid most of the scary words (infection and fester). Boo and ya.

The wisdom garnered from this tale is simple. As Confucius (or as his buddies knew him K'ung-fu-tzu) would say: "Person afraid of glass in feet, should always wear shoes."

Today's sing-a-long song: "Walking on broken glass" by Annie Lennox

HRH