THERE AREN'T ENOUGH EXPLETIVES

THERE AREN’T ENOUGH EXPLETIVES!!

Oops! Ouch! (Expletive)

!@#$%& !@#$%& !@#$%&

“I’ll call you back!”

A number of years ago, I was expecting a very important phone call. My grandson had gotten hurt, and my son promised he’d call as soon as he was sure Robbie would be ok.

If I could have gotten to the hospital to sit and wait with my son and daughter-in-law, I’d have been there in a heartbeat! Unfortunately, I was approximately 860 miles away. A phone call would have to do. Yet, I was worried. Robbie was only three and my son said the knot on his head was as big as a tangerine. Robbie, being Robbie, had been using the couch as a trampoline and as often as my son and his wife told him to stop, he kept jumping.

Robbie has ADHD and even with his medications, there are times he’ll need to expel his built-up energy. That was one of those times.

As quickly as Lee (my daughter-in-law) rose from her chair, Robbie’s foot slipped and he missed the couch, hitting his head on the end table as he went down! He was only unconscious for a few seconds, but my son and his wife knew a hospital visit was in order.

Cutting a long story short, Robbie was fine.

While I waited for that phone call from my son, “nature” called, and I needed to use the bathroom. Naturally!!

I did my business and just as I was pulling up my jeans, the phone rang. (Naturally, I didn’t take my phone in the bathroom with me!)

Yanking up my pants, I attempted to run out of the bathroom. SLAM!! The darn door jamb didn’t move, but my toe did – in a very awkward position.

Screaming any expletive that came to mind, as I felt the room spinning, I quickly made my way to the bedroom which is only a few feet away from the bathroom door.

I landed on the bed as I picked up the phone. Not even knowing or caring who was calling, I said, “I’ll call you back!”

Those were my last words for about three minutes. I went out! Like a light!

Upon waking, I checked caller ID. It wasn’t my son who called. It was our friend across the street. I called him back, explained why I disconnected the call so rudely, then handled the call.

I wasn’t on the phone long but in that short time, my toe grew twice its size and turned a very dark purple!

Yep, I broke it!

Although the doctors will tell you that there is no need to tape the broken toe to the unbroken one next to it, I did it anyway.

Yes, my son called about thirty minutes later. As I said, Robbie was fine.

!@#$%& !@#$%& !@#$%&

The following year, we visited my daughter. She lives about 1500 miles away, and that distance prevents us from frequent trips to the chilly New England town. I love New England in the fall when the trees change color. Between the green, pale green, yellow, orange, and red, the trees seem to come alive and offer breathtaking scenes that demand you take their pictures.

The weather might have had the leaves turn colors and the trees shed their majestic coats, but the temperature was still warm enough for us to wear sandals.

Yeah! I had my sandals on. And double, yeah! You guessed it.

I’d taken my dog for a much-needed walk and just my luck! He saw a wild turkey in Ashley’s front yard about to cross the street.

In my attempt to keep my dog reigned in on his leash, I never noticed the tree root the rain from the night before uncovered.

My toe slammed into the root sending me projecting forward. My body moved; my toe did not. Wham! Down I went all the while muttering all the expletives my blurry mind could conger up.

The turkey got away, but thankfully, my dog did not. As the world around me started to spin, I held tight to his leash. After a few seconds, I was able to stand (on one foot) and hobble my way back into the house.

My daughter saw me hobbling and said, “Oh my God! What have you done now?”

I looked down at my toe. Yes, the very same toe I’d broken two years earlier. And yes, it was once again, swollen, and purple! Being an EMT, Ashley’s husband quickly brought out a bucket of chopped ice and a cloth. He wrapped the cold cloth around my toe and stuck my foot in the bucket where it sat for the next twenty minutes. Then he taped the broken toe to the unbroken toe next to it.

!@#$%& !@#$%& !@#$%&

I began counting the years. One year passed and I didn’t break my toe.

It was still unbroken the following year.

The third year, my luck was still holding.

The fourth year didn’t go so well. I needed to move a folding table in the garage. It slipped out of my hands (after all, the bloody thing was heavy) and fell on my foot! Well, okay, so it hit my toe – the bad-luck toe. And yes, it broke again!! Damn toe, anyway!!

My husband came running out of the house after he heard my shouts of expletives.

“What the heck happened?”

I looked down at my toe. It was beginning to swell and change color – again!

He put the table back where it was, much to my dismay. If I’d have wanted it there, I wouldn’t have been trying to move it but, well, for the time being, it was going to stay where he put it.

He helped me wobble inside. This time, thankfully, the room didn’t spin out of control. He grabbed the ice pack from the freezer, elevated my foot and gently wrapped the ice pack around my foot.

!@#$%& !@#$%& !@#$%&

Two years later, I was convinced the bad luck my toe kept experiencing was in the past. I had to be more careful and pay better attention to where and how I was walking. No more fast moving around. Walls weren’t going to move when they saw me coming. Rocks and tree roots didn’t care if I was nearby.

We finally convinced my mom to move in with us. Actually, she didn’t have a choice. She was ill and needed constant care. The only one available to attend to her every need was me! My brother had died years before, so mom had no choice but to tolerate me and my klutziness.

How did I do?

Well, I didn’t break my toe for a few years. I did cut my finger a time or two as I prepared dinner. I also burned my fingers now and again as I cooked. All normal things that seem to be part of my personality.

Then, five years later, the angels came and took mom home. She was finally out of her misery and pain. Mom also had Alzheimer's, so I’m not sure just how much awareness she had about her misery, but I know how she’d scream in pain if she moved a bit too fast in the wrong way. (Hey, what’s that thing about the apple?)

After mom left to be with dad and my brother, I used the little inheritance I’d gotten to take my husband on a week-long cruise. I felt we both needed to get away and get back to us.

!@#$%& !@#$%& !@#$%&

I planned a cruise to Cozumel.

Everything was going great until our first shore excursion. It was a snorkeling adventure. How wonderful. The brochure showed a beautiful, sunny, sandy beach with people wading into the deeper water to snorkel.

Oh, how those brochures lie!

Yes, we had a sandy beach but that’s not how you got into the water. It wasn’t a “beach” as we know it. It was a lagoon. A lagoon that required you to descend a “rung” ladder. I emphasize the word rung because there are ladders with steps and ladders with thin round pipes (rungs). Ours definitely did NOT have steps. The rungs also had silt and seaweed in certain areas.

Oh yeah! You guessed it. My foot slid on the silt, slid off the rung with much speed, and with an unheard-of vengeance, crashed on the rung below.

Yeah, you’re right again. I broke the same damn toe!

I held on to the ladder as my husband swam to me.

“What happened now?” he asked.

I didn’t want to raise my foot out of the cool water, but I did let out a few verbal expletives.

“Again?” he asked.

“Yes, again.” I answered.

With his aid and trying carefully not to alarm anyone in our group, I hobbled through the rest of the excursion. Once back on the ship, I ordered a soft drink and a glass of ice from housekeeping.

I soaked my toe in a bucket of ice, (yeah, I sent my husband to the ice machine to get a bucket) and after almost twenty minutes, using tape I never leave home without (lessons learned), I taped the toes together again.

Seems like a marriage made in …. surely not heaven since one is always broken.

There just aren’t enough expletives invented when you break a toe and just want to verbalize the pain.

I know … been there too many times. And the day is still young yet!