I Broke My Toe

We were having Mothers/Fathers Day this evening since all us kids were on holiday from our Diaspora. We had just given Pops his new rockets (yay!) and Mom was getting ready to open her present when Andrew started making strange shouting noises directed at the living room.

Henry was sitting on the couch proudly (I guess dogs aren't allowed on furniture at Mom and Dad's) and Ernie (The Kid's dog) was sitting pitifully on the ground, looking up at Henry.

Andrew's shouting was directed at Henry. Because everyone knows that bellowing sounds make dogs get off furniture.

Since Henry wasn't getting off the couch, I went over to get him off. I picked up his furry little body and bounced back over to the dining room.

The living room is one of those sunken ones, so it's got one stone step in between it and the dining room. As I bounced along, I underestimated the appropriate height of my bounce up into the dining room and caught my pinkie toe on the stone step.

Crunch.

"AAAAAUGH!" I screamed, and dropped the dog.

We had just spent the last half hour discussing gory and disgusting stories, half for our dinner edification and half to gross dad out. So me crunching my toe on the step was real fashionable. Everyone at the table was silent for a second and then erupted into discussion a moment later.

"I think I ripped off my toenail!" I wailed.

Andrew shot off his chair and ran upstairs. Sister crouched down beside me and said, "Let me see, let me see". Joey hovered around above me. Pops said, "Oh man, I hope it's not broken", and "If you're bleeding, get off the carpet" and other motivational things.

I scooched myself over to the wood floor where we surveyed the damage.

For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to see my pinkie toe, perhaps you will recall that I have the sorriest excuse for a pinkie toenail. It's really small and Joey makes fun of it whenever he can. (Meanie.)

The nail isn't ripped off, but it's longer than it used to be and a strange greenish/purpleish color at the base. And there was no blood, which was a disappointment.

Andrew reappeared carrying two boxes of bandaids, hydrogen peroxide, and rubbing alcohol.

"I didn't know which to grab," he explained, and set all his loot down on the kitchen table. "And I couldn't find any cotton balls."

I was still wailing (as any self respecting woman would do) and Joey sat down and made me show him my toe. "Can you move it?" I wiggled it up and down.

"It's not broken," he said.

"Is too!" I wailed. "I've never had a broken bone. It's the very end that's broken."

"It's not broken," Pops weighed in from the dining room. He's the expert on broken toes because he just broke his a couple weeks ago.

"Is too!" I reiterated. "It's all swollen and purpley-like."

And, thus, I maintain that I broke my toe. It hurts like a banshee, it's all plump and swollen and, while I can move it, it's the end of it that really hurts. So I probably broke the end off or something logical like that.

Gross.