Howling

This morning I woke up about 5:30 am. I don’t know why, I just did. So I decided, in my half asleep state, to go to the bathroom. I have no real idea of what happened next, but I found myself falling on the side of my face up against the back of the bedroom door, with a throbbing foot. I hobbled to the bathroom, wondering ‘what was all that about?’, then went back to bed, curled up with my sore foot.

It wasn’t till I tried to get up later that I realised just how sore my foot was, and noticed that one toe was slowly going purple and red. Still unable to grasp what I had done in the night, I did a scan of the bedroom floor wondering what could be the offending item. I think I found it in that new bike seat I was too lazy to go down and screw on last weekend (the old one is too hard is all I’m saying, and sticky goop started oozing out of the padded cover I had put over it, so I bought a new seat – but it’s cold down in the garage, I'd have to go fossicking for a spanner and I haven’t put it on yet). There it was lying upside down on the floor with it’s too steel attachment bars facing upwards, looking like it must be what I collected on the way to the bathroom.

I had actually planned to walk in to work today, rather than ride, so I could go on over to the city tonight to shop for something for my niece's birthday, then bus it home, and for some stupid reason I carried on with this plan. Halfway here I just wanted to stop and howl with pain and frustration at how long it was taking me to limp all the way into work and was wishing I had someone else’s life. But then as I hobbled across a road I found $20 lying in the middle of it, which temporarily alleviated all that. I don’t think I’ve ever found $20 before.

By the time I got to work my toe looked a big, swollen, purple mess, which is some relief really. It’s better, when something is extremely painful, and you’re limping something ridiculous, that it at least looks like it should be painful. Invisible injuries are harder to deal with. And it seems to be getting worse as the day goes by, such that now the work bathroom and coffee machine seem a long way away, let alone home.

I was feeling like I should go and give that $20 to a homeless person, or someone who needs free money more than I do. But now, I think I might just blow it all on a taxi.