Well, Friday had rolled around too soon…like always and I headed on out to the airport to fly to the city where my family lives and where my house is. It is strange packing up everything you have every week and hauling it halfway across the country. But I do it because it is expected of me. I got into Dallas and took a cab to my house. Our dog barked at me. I took all my stuff in and said hello to all the occupants. Wife, kids, dog, cats. Cats are plural at my house due to an assault on our original cat one night as she was walking back home from a visit up the street. Soon we had seven cats. We gave three of them away; the pretty ones, but found we couldn't part with Twinkle, Rover and Frito. Frito is a special needs kitty who was born with three toes and an opposable thumb on one front paw and two missing vertebrate. Three toes….free toes…..Frito. The name selection was a natural progression.

So now we are faced with the prospect of a house full of cats until my oldest daughter moves out. An event, if my wife has any say, which is eminent. The rule is: If you move out of our house either voluntarily or involuntarily you have to take a cat….or two. My daughter is 18. She is on the verge of being a cat owner and an apartment dweller. Anyway, this particular visit home from the project, I was in my wife's room getting dressed for Church. My wife was standing near a mirror and I was looking to walk past her into the bathroom. This situation isn't like my usual daily routine. Usually there is no wife there and certainly no cats. Hotels don't like cats.

So I was stepping around my wife and Frito, the cat with the thumb, walked between my foot and the floor. I had several choices. I could kick the back of my wife's leg causing possible injury. I could step on Frito, causing certain injury or I could follow my third choice, slamming my right foot, toe first into the corner of the wall. I heard it break. It made a sick, wet cracking sound, kind of like wrapping a bag of pretzels in a wet towel and hitting them with a three pound sledge hammer. Thank goodness I was getting ready for church. After the stream of consciousness that poured out of my mouth that morning, I was in need of some churching.

I was also in need of medical care. Now I am well aware that if you break your little toe, you can go to a doctor and they will take and X-ray, pronounce that you have indeed broken your little toe and charge you $60.00 for your trouble. I didn't care. It hurt. It was going to hurt tomorrow and the next day. But did I go for medical care? Nope! I had to get on an airplane and travel back to the project site with a broken toe. What I didn't know at the time was that in addition to having a broken little toe, I had a broken toe next to the little toe and a broken bone in my foot above the broken little toe. But hey! Revenue is revenue. Right?

Off to the airport, bright and early Monday morning. Limping along with my bags, straightening up my limp as I approached the counter so they would still let me sit in the exit row. Since my foot was killing me, sitting in the exit row was probably not a safe idea, but if ever there was a morning flight where I needed the leg room, this was it. The only other seat that comes close is the first row coach, three seat side, aisle seat, where your feet get to ride in first class.

Arriving in Atlanta on American Airlines, you have to walk some miles to the rental car bus pickup point. So I waited around the security area….lurking….exhibiting that suspicious behavior the intercom system at the airport is always telling you to be on the lookout for. Eventually someone abandons one of those carts as they go through security. I seize it, saving the $2.00 fee. Piling on my bags, I can lean on the cart as I wheel my way through the airport. I get on the rental car bus, pick up my car and drive to the north side of Atlanta where my project is located. We are in a new building at the project. It is a walking facility….which means that the parking lot is a long hike from the front door.

At the end of the day, I got back to the hotel and requested a ground floor room, took my shoes and socks off and my foot is black. Do I go to the doctor? Nooooo. As a man, it is my nature to ignore obvious injury…besides there are some purple streaks which are obviously a sign that I am getting better. I figure that if I don't actually look at it and pretend it is okay, then it will get better….soon. Three weeks later, while visiting home, I went to see the doctor for a matter unrelated to my toe and casually mention it to him. He takes an X-Ray, tells me that my foot has been broken in several places.…but it has mostly healed now and reasonably straight. If it doesn't bother me, he isn't going to recommend anything be done. He charges me the standard co-pay.