Chasing Happy

About how gross this is going to be.

A few months ago, I attended the very fun 40th Bday Surprise Weekend of my oldest sister, you can find her over here. It was in St. Louis. I guess you could say I Met Her in St. Louis (HA HA HA HAAAAA) but you probably wouldn’t because odds are you are way cooler than me.

Anyhoo, one thing I learned there is that one way to sweat out the 96 oz. of Sauvignon Blanc you have inhaled the night before is to visit the St. Louis City Museum and spend a million hours climbing around their outdoor recycled metal Habitrail. It is way fun, and also gets rid of all nausea, oddly enough.

However, there is one part, in the inside Habitrail part, where if you are not paying attention, as you are coming down the metal railing curlique slide, your big toe can all of a sudden get stuck between two metal-y thingys that will not release your toe. This is bad news, and causes a few moments of consternation, yes, mainly because all the other visitors to the Habitrail are kind of unpleasant and have mullets and are behind you and are using like really inappropriate language even though you do that thing where you look at them and then look at your little tiny itty bitty nieces and nephews (who are, in reality, enormous (in terms of age and grown uppedness, not girth, of course)) and then look back at them to be like, “Hey there buddy, how about we dial down the use of the c-word around the eleventy million children,” and they look back at you like, “Get out of my way, c-word.”

So, finally I got my toe and my self the heck out of that particular slide.

Months pass, leaves change, occasionally I complain to D’oh that my toenail appears to be a little discolored. No big thing.

***

Now, my mom firmly believes that if you live where I live, you should not leave your house and drive an automobile within 24 hrs. of rush hour. And if you do, what you should not do above all else, is drive on the Beltway of all places! It’s not you she’s worried about, it’s the other drivers, you see.

Imagine what her chagrin would have been then, had I ever told her the following story.

Let me bring up my mom here one last time, if I might, even though I think I’m giving her a complex whenever I write about her. My mom never has her cell phone turned on. Ever. If she turns it on to call you, don’t try to call her back, she has already turned it back off. She is reaching for the power button even as she finishes her message to you. You will not get her. I always always complain about this tendency because it means that if she has an emergency, yes, she can call you. But if you have one, no, you cannot call her.

Here is why I should stop busting her chops about this.

One Saturday I was leaving work and realized I didn’t have my cell phone on me because I was charging it at my desk.

My coworker very kindly offered to wait for me to go get it, and I said, “No, no one ever calls me.”(See where this is going?)

The following Monday, I was running late. Not super late, but late enough that I thought, “I should just take the Beltway, it’ll be faster.” As I was driving toward the Beltway, I did, I admit, hear a funny noise. Kind of like if BamBam was trapped in the trunk and was whapping his big club around in an attempt to escape.

But then, the noise stopped.

But then then, as I was on the ramp getting to the Beltway, the car behind me started flashing its lights at me. I of course, immediately thought, “G*&^^%$n, a*&&%^$#$le, I’m going as fast as I can!” But what I should have thought was, “I say, the banging noise appears to have returned, perhaps this kind gentleman is alerting me to a vehicular malfunction.” (Because I am British apparently?)

Long story long, I had a flat tire. On the Beltway. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently being broken down on the side of the road on the Beltway was my worst nightmare. And it had just come true. These were two out of three of the unfortunate revelations I had just then.

The third revelation? Well, you can probably guess that it was about this time I had realized that leaving my phone at work was not fantastic.

I didn’t want to flag down help because with my luck, the only car that would have stopped would be the fake policeman who pretends to help you and then sells your skin on eBay, you know? So I made the probably unwise choice to drive my car to the next exit and regroup.

There, oddly enough, once I turned off, was a cop! He was the nicest cop ever and he helped me call D’oh and as he was pulling over people to give tickets I shook my fist at them to let him know I was firmly on the side of right and good, if also on the side of dumb.

Anyway, D’oh showed up and pulled off the old, bad, flat tire.

Then he looked at me and said, “Here.” And rolled the tire toward dumb me who was

1. not paying attention
2. wearing Old Navy flats which are not really built for you know, tough stuff

Surprise, surprise the big old tire landed…on my big old toe which had recently been extracted from between two metal-y thingys at the end of a metal curlique slide.

Over the next few months, rather than turning blue or black as a bruised toenail may have, I realized that that toenail was, in fact, turning white.

Did you know that that is not good? DID YOU KNOW THAT THAT MEANS SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO FALL OFF?????????????????????!!!!!!!!! (I’m sorry)

Yes, my toenail, it appeared, was about to come off…the whole thing. (I really am sorry)

Not just the tip. It wasn’t broken. No, the whole ding dong nail was going to go. (Really, I really feel bad about this. Just look away now.)

This turn of events resulted in several conversations between D’oh and I that went a little something like this:

Me, to D’oh: Please, will you just pull my toenail off.

D’oh (wisely): No!

Me: Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaassssssseeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

D’oh: It’ll fall off when it’s ready.

Me: Aren’t you my husband? Don’t you love me? Isn’t this your job?

D’oh: I’ll pull it off, but I don’t want you to be mad at me if it hurts.

Me: I can’t believe you want to pull off my toenail!!!! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU??????????!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I am delightful.

Anyway, for a few weeks now I’ve been trying to sort of, help, I guess, the toenail depart. (I said sorry!) I’ve been prodding it with my other big toe, sort of half-heartedly pulling at it, yelling at it (ineffective, FYI), just generally trying to Get It OFF!!!! Not because I wanted to be nailless, of course, but because the feeling of the flailing nail getting stuck in my socks was like super-gross (SORRY!!)

Yesterday though, I had just had it. I gave one good tug (AAAAAHHH, I KNOW!!!!) and off it came (I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry). I was a nine-nailer.

Gross, right?

But then.

I sort of, um, well….misplaced it.

Not my fault actually, the room I pulled it off in (sorry!) does not have a trash can so I left the room with it to dispose of it. Then I got distracted by a conversation with D’oh that went something like:

Me, to D’oh: nail gone me ow sad like ew gross throw up yuck did you make my lunch?

D’oh: ???

Me, to myself: Didn’t I just have something in my hand?

I immediately set about searching the most likely places: The trashcan and Pocket’s mouth (I KNOW!! I AM SORRY, OK?!?) No luck.

Next up: The bathroom, my bed (EW!), my shoes, Pocket’s mouth again (I KNOW!!! YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I KNOW!!!), and the floor.

Nothing.

It finally turned up when I went to grab my mascara out of my makeup bag and felt…well, you know, don’t you? I don’t know what that was about. Was I saving it? I hope not. Was this the grossest thing to happen me ever in life? Yes. Have I grossed you out yet? Most likely. Did I need to tell you this? Probably not.

AM I SORRY? YES, JESUS, YES!!!!