This year I spent Thanksgiving away from home, in Chicago, hosted by an old (but youthful) friend and his gracious wife. (with guest appearances from miss annie tomlin, who has matured into a sophisticated woman.)
I broke my right index toe on Thanksgiving, which was a drag. The pain was not half as annoying as the act itself, because when you say you did something as innocuous and non-life threatening as break your toe, it’s like telling someone, “Hey, I fell down-boom and got a boo-boo on my wee-wee spot.”
In the several instances I’ve told the story, I’ve emphasized the ridiculous irony of breaking my toe. I showed up at my friend’s place, wearing boots. Got into drinking immediately – his family has a way of encouraging the consumption of alcohol and dairy enzymes. After about an hour and a half I was told to take off my boots, and relax. I went into the front room, took off my boots, spun around, and slammed into a piece of furniture, cracking the toe. The joke, along with the little chips of bone inside my skin bag, was on me.
However, there was an important detail deliberately excised from the story. Good detective work would reveal a 45-second gap between the time my boots came off and my toe was broken. That’s because I was obsessed with how fat I’ve grown since Halloween and, as soon as the boots came off, I dropped and did 30 push-ups. Upon hopping to my feet, I banged my toe into furniture and broke it.
I felt it was important to remove that sliver of data in telling the story. A broken toe is humiliating enough, and does not require the additional strains of insecurity, vanity, and gluttonous obesity weaving their way through the tale. You certainly wouldn’t want to tell someone you got a hernia by forgetting to bend at the knees before lifting a 25-pound block of caramel fudge to your dinner plate. Or that you developed ocular protuberance from peeing too hard. As long as there are no witnesses, it’s your story alone to tell.
Oh, and it was 25 push-ups. I mean, if we’re being honest. And it wasn’t my toe; it was my wiener bone.
