Walk This Way

Since last saturday night, this is how I have had to walk: leaning to my left and dragging my right foot behind me, in an unintentional parody of the ultimate mad scientist's assistant that ever existed in fiction - Igor. I had gone to the courts with Doc Nikki (see picture at right -- hi dok!) to play a long-delayed game of badminton. I don't know whether I ought to place the blame on my shoes (red flags everywhere when I noticed that the sole felt suspiciously sticky on the rubber matting) or on the fact that it had been months since our last game and I was rustier than the bottom of a provincial ferry. We weren't five minutes into the game and hadn't even begun to sweat yet when I landed on the side of my foot and it twisted a full ninety degrees at the end of my leg. Mother@#%$*&# sh#@!!! I felt something pop, and then I fell to the floor in a wimpy, whiny mass of deathly pale flesh. My opponent, the good doctor, came and gingerly rotated the malfunctioned foot while I stared at it, bug-eyed with shock. It was a while before any feeling returned to the busted-up extremity, and I was led limping to the bleachers to have my ankle iced for twenty minutes with a hastily-borrowed icepack that smelled faintly of meat. Doc Nikki rotated my foot again to check for broken bones. I was reminded of Willoughby checking Marianne's twisted ankle in Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", and so I blurted out "Too bad you aren't Zach Braff" (that I might have said 'James Bond', 'John Taylor', 'Adam Levine' or 'that bookstore bachelor rumored to be gay' is equally possible). The life I lead is dull enough that my mind is always ready to detect any opportunity for fantasy. I don't think I would have minded a trip to the hospital and some emergency surgery, if only for the remote possibility of being attended to by a good-looking, single, heterosexual ER doctor. Alas, Doc Nikki declared there would be no need to have me carried off on a stretcher.

My foot felt sore, but since I had no broken bones and I could still walk, nay, limp, I insisted that we resume the game. I played standing still most of the time, and hopped on my left leg if the ball went beyond the reach of my arm. I was determined not to let the 250 we were paying for the court go down the toilet. Today is Monday, and against the doc's advice to stay off my foot for a couple of days, I went to work. As a result of my stubbornness, my foot has swollen up. I now have a cankle (calf merged into ankle = cankle), and my foot is starting to turn green and purple. Yet I remain undaunted; the housework must be done, and so I continue to do the Igor shuffle. And now I think I hear the kettle calling. Coming, maaaaster!