Dance of the Stubbed Toe

Good God! Nothing seems to be more painful than a stubbed toe! And, it's the one pain in the world that the ratio of pain is in direct opposition to anyone caring. Sympathy from your friends is non-existent. You can't call work and take a sick day because of your toe stubbing. (if you did, you usually pump it up by saying 'it might be broken'). You'll feel embarrassed to wait in a doctors office to tell him your foot was traumatized a while back. If you call 911, you'd better be ready to be ignored...

Why am I writing about this? I'll give you one guess...

I had another thought I was going to write about, until tragedy found its way to my metacarpals. And I had to pay homage to the pediatric gods and perform the Stubbed Toe Dance ritual.

Com'on, you know what I mean. We all do it. Without fail.

You're walking along, doing whatever you do. When this curse that strike both kings and peasants affects you. Your foot digits strike the corner of a semi immovable object. The irony is, at the point of impact, and even before possibly, you knew that item was there on the floor! You've bypassed it hundreds of times. You're not a rookie at walking. And in the second of transition from bliss to agony, your mind is working overtime trying to find an explanation on why this happened now.

Someone must have placed the object a few millimeters out of place to foul your day! There was a minor tremor, that slightly displaced objects, so your area is no long a positive feng shui, but a hellish deathtrap.

Or you're just a clumsy oaf...But no...NAY! This can never be!! I am a bipedal human, master of all creation! I cannot, WILL NOT, fall prey to common objects! I don't see lowly monkeys and meerkats tripping because of their own goofiness? And MY brain is like 11 times their size! I poop in a semi-carpeted desgnated room! No other creature on earth can claim that!

But, then again, no other creature can claim leisure suits. Pet rocks. Paying for designer water when the same thing is free. Oxygen bars. Crustless bread. And sequels to Van Wilder...without Van Wilder.

But, the deed is done, and the electric spark from your toe trauma finally makes it's way to your cranium. And what does "God's greatest creation" rationalize is the best course of action to this conundrum? What it the defining moment where we prove that Man is superior to all species?

We start the dance around the room, hissing through gritted teeth and waving our hands about to try to stave off the pain, as our eyes glass over and try to get enough breath to bitch out the item that caused this instant subtraction to your intelligence.

"Damn you, coffee table leg! Damn you to hell!! I'm coming back here and taking an axe to you! I've had it with you and the wicker chair!! Arrrghhh!!!"

Hissing to the God's I can understand. That's probably a primal instict to appease that, as it's obvious that you've upset them, and you've received penance. But, waving your hands? You're hands aren't injured at all, nor on fire. And probably these are the safest parts of your body at this moment. I figure your head is so messed up in that spark of pain, that people remember why desert foxes have such big ears. They act as heat dissipater to cool down the lil' fox. Maybe, our tourchered mind erroneously, but instectively, thinks this also can work with pain. Not having huge ass ears...Hands.

Either way, we complete the dance by quickly prancing about in either a tight circle, or an elliptical course. And a lot more quickly than we were walking just before I might add.

And before anyone say that the pain might be a broken toe: I've broken a toe once before, playing raquetball when my foot when east into a corner, and my toe continued to travel up the wall north. I thought after that initial pain, "Well, that wasn't a bad stubbed toe..."

We are all creatures of instinct. Next time you feel obligated to do the Dance of the Stubbed Toe, and try as you might, you cannot deny it, think about all this: If there is a God, it's proof not only he exists, but he has a wonderful sense of humor, and probably laughs himself silly at "Jackass"...

And if there isn't, we're all just natural idiots.

ps. the spell checker wanted to replace "penance" with "penis". make of that what you will...