Lucky Foot Soldiers

W4D decided an hour or so ago that he wanted salmon for supper. I tore the freezer apart looking for salmon filets. I suspected there wasn't any in the freezer but as I was digging through enough perma-frosted frozen food to feed a family of 5 for 3 months, all that hard as hell frozen schitt came tumbling out and landed on my foot. Ouch! That hurt. My dignity is hurt worse than my friggin' foot though so I guess that's a good thing. Then, since my house sitter hadn't cleaned the sink while we were gone I decided to scour it and as I cleaned the nasties out of the sink trap, leaned over to tap the drainer-strainer thingie into the kitchen trash, I lost my balance on my tender foot and toppled over into the tall oscillating fan which fell onto the hardwood floor with a crash, the front grill flying off and the blades striking the side of the kitchen computer desk chipping the corner. Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, Thud! Ouch, again.

I didn't find the farkin' fish in the freezer. My foot is swelling up and it is about 900 degrees outside (only a slight exaggeration with the addition of one itty bitty zero) in mid-April and I can't take it any more. I detest summer and I want to be back where I was yesterday.We had left town few days to do some antiquing and shopping for business. We were headed for St. Augustine, the oldest city in the USA (established 1565). It's one of our fave places with plenty of nearby antiques shops and fresh seafood, narrow cobbled streets and a pretty view of the bay and the Atlantic.


Door on Charlotte St., St. Augustine, FL

The trip started out well enough. We traveled over to the St. John's River and stopped at a little town along the way that has a few antiques shops I needed to search. W4D dropped me off in front of the first shop and went to park the car across the street. I wasn't in the shop more than 2 minutes when a pregnant lady came rushing in hollering to know if there was a "Flaurella" in the store.

"Yes, I am Flaurella."

"Your husband is asking for you. He just got hit by a truck."

"You mean the car got hit by a truck?"

"No, He got hit by a truck. Hurry! He's asking for you."

Holy crap.

After I worked my way through the maze of people and cars stopped in the middle of the street in front of the shop, I saw The Lube sitting on the curb where he had been deposited by two strong men who had picked him up off the street after the passenger truck he WALKED INTO had flung him 8 or 9 feet. He was knocked cuckoo and even more dazed than usual. He kept telling me that his foot was swollen, about 20 times.

"Yes, you fool. Of course your foot is swollen, you were just run over by a truck!"

According to eye-witnesses and my semi-coherent husband, Mr. Man was walking foward while looking backwards as he clicked the automatic lock bipper on his keychain, checking to make sure the head lights came on as the car doors auto-locked (eejit!) when he absent-mindedly walked into the steet and tangled with the truck driven by a nice man who was very visably shaking and upset since he also kept telling me at least 20 times that he had "never even hit a squirrel before."

Aside from W4D's glazed eyes, one arm and elbow looking a little like hamburger meat and a new, heavy leather Sperry Topsider boat shoe shredded to bits (now that's hard to do!), my husband looked pretty normal. If he had just shut up about the swollen foot, I wouldn't have been worried. But he sounded like a broken record. All he could say was:

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

I examined his head.
No bumps or contusions.
His pupils were reacting equally and properly.

I pulled off the shreds of his leather shoe and looked at his foot. Not hardly swollen but there was going to be a heckuva stone bruise on the sole of his foot within an hour or two. There didn't appear to be any crushed metatarsals or broken toes.

His jeans were not ripped and thank goodness they were heavy ones and he wasn't wearing shorts. His Hawaiian shirt didn't have a single tear but the leather was all scraped and ruined along the front of his belt. I still can't figure out how that happened since his belly proceeds his belt.

Apparently, Mr. Man walked into the forward right front side of the moving truck, the front tire ran over his foot and then the large side view mirror caught him (ah! maybe in the belt area?) and tossed him ahead and to the front side of the truck as the driver hit the brakes. Thankfully, this was right beside the County Courthouse and no one was driving fast.

We exchanged info. We talked to a Sherrif coming out of the courthouse who said we needed to talk to the City Police The accident was clearly W4D's fault but the driver was very kind and concerned. He called 911 to get an EMT and file a police report but no one ever came so after about an hour, we left and Ace Ambulance Driver Flaurella continued the trek to our hotel on the Coast where Private Nurse Flaurella checked W4D out nekked for other visible injuries. I had given him super Tylenol while he was still cuckoo on the curb and he didn't seem too sore except he wouldn't shut the hell up about his swollen foot. I decided he didn't need to go to the emergency room.

We took off for late luncheon at The Columbia Restaurant and then it occurred to me... I have a major Accidental Death and Dismemberment policy that I took out on my husband years and years ago. I pay for it quarterly and I am the sole beneficiary. I always figured Mr. Man would off himself accidentally in some stupid, manly, idiotic way and that AD&D insurance would be a very good idea. Now that I think of it, I could have been a very rich widow-lady today instead of back at work, hunting for frosty frozen fish with a now farkin' swollen foot of my own.


Past and Present: Feet Flying in the Air,
Statue above our table at
The Columbia Restaurant
in St. Augustine.

Back to the trip: for the next two days, W4D took "Naproxin" from his dock kit for the pain and stiffness. He complained it wasn't working as well as the Extra Strength Tylenol I had given him. I had offered several times to run over to the drugstore and get him some Alleve or something stronger. Eventually, W4D looked at the bottle of pills he had been taking and discovered he was taking sinus pills instead of Naproxin. No wonder his foot still hurt but at least his sinuses were clear.

So, I don't get to collect on the insurance policy but we both played the Florida lottery instead, once in St. Augustine and once in the town where W4D survived being hit by the truck. We think we were both really lucky this week. At least W4D is here to talk about his swollen foot and I am here to bitch about mine. Maybe we will win $82 Million tonight. That's much more than the AD&D insurance would have paid me and there are hopefully many more days, months and years ahead to do other stupid things