Foot Joy

Now that I am 30, my body has started to deteriorate.
Gray hairs on my head, pain in my knees when I wake, new hairs on my back, longer recovery time after a night of wine... these hardships are tolerable and somewhat expected.

Some things, however, are intolerable:
Last March, I endured the pain and suffering (not to mention, the catheter!) of hernia surgery in my "groin area." This slicing open of my abdomen in 3 places, the mandatory two months of physical inactivity that followed, and turning 30 two weeks later all conspired to lead me down the sordid path to atrophy and obesity.
I finally got off my fat ass (literally) this past summer, bought a bike, and began the long road back to abdominal respectability.
Two weeks ago, just as I was about to cross the threshold from "fat, broken down, and old" into "halfway mediocre" physical shape, I shattered my foot into hundreds (ok, maybe tens) of pieces.

Granted, "shattered" may be an overstatement... I didn't quite get my foot run over by a Hummer. Nor is the path from my backdoor to my barbecue grill booby-trapped with landmines... But you wouldn't know that from looking at my right foot.

While horseplaying in my apartment, I crushed my foot against--unironically--a footstool. Within seconds, my toes were blue and black and purple and swollen as big as an eggplant. Now I spend every minute of my day writhing in pain and I've been limping around like a pirate for two weeks.
My pinky toe is broken and the crack team of doctors at Medical City Dallas is powerless to repair it. They say that the toe is too small to do any kind of 'procedure' on it. And that the mind-numbing, constant pain may be caused by 40-or-so pieces of broken toe pushing against a nerve.

Doc: "All I can do is give you some painkillers."

Me: "That'll work."

So my struggle to stay under 180 pounds is lost for sure.... I'm hovering around 190 now, and since I am hobbled indefinitely by this crippling malady, I will inevitably balloon to 200+ pounds, lose what little I have remaining of a social life, be even more ostracized by the opposite sex (except for those women on the Montel Show who stalk fat men), and resign myself to a lifetime of Sansabelt slacks and pleated (for that 'slimming' effect) Dockers.

It was suggested by a doctor that I wear some kind of wacky wooden "shoe-brace" that he allegedly patented, to make sure I don't re-injure the toe and also to ward off any possible pain in the rest of my leg that may result from 6 weeks of pirate-limping. Great, I say. A wooden shoe is exactly what my life needs....

If you would like to be on the Montel Show, and are predisposed to date overweight men who wear Sansabelt slacks and wooden shoes on their right foot, please reply to this post.

I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere.