Let’s all just toe the line

Alta, you need an apology. I know you are a faithful reader of this fabulous paper, but my advocate, his brown shoes, and my unfinished shower just got up your nose. Mine, too. Promise.

The advocate is a fog in my mind. Brown shoes? I don’t have nightmares anymore. And the shower is finished… Weeelll. I still have to get up a very tall ladder to paint the top of my Out of Africa boudoir. And this is where your irritation level, and mine, spike, Alta. I think you missed the part of the brick hitting my toe?

Me bleeding in the rain (forget the tears, that will just irritate you more). Well, Alta, you’ve moved on, but I’ve been living The Toe. For two months. The first four days my wooden floors looked like the Battle of Blood River. But going to hospital didn’t cross my mind.

It’s a toe, not Covid. Can’t bother them. It’s a toe… But one morning I got a whiff. The state hospital was quite lovely, Alta. I got three stitches and an even bigger bandage than my chemist could ever give me. I did hear the nail would probably never grow again, but that’s why us woman have Maybelline, right?

I’ll fake it forever with some Fire Red painted on a fleshy toe. Back to The Toe you chose to ignore. Did you know that people have actually died because of their vrot toes? And I quote Doctor Google: Josip Broz Tito (died 1980); Moses Weaver Martin (died 1925).

It’s that whiff. Eight weeks later I still keep the unsightly Toe covered. Eight weeks later – going on for nine – I’m wondering if I dare put a shoe (not brown) on my phallic symbol pointing skywards.

Eight weeks later I know: you missed the point of my words. But then again, it’s just words telling a story. My story, admittedly – and your irritation levels? I can only roll my eyes. Because I’m looking at The Toe wondering when it falls off.

And you, my keyboard warrior, wrote me and my toe off as vrot. Yeah, I’m probably a drama queen and I probably won’t die a painful toe death like Moses Weaver Martin.

But it’s a high price to pay for a shower – and your entertainment, methinks.

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