Along Came a Fire Hydrant

I spent this past week in Colorado visiting family and friends. Most of my time was spent with family at my grandparents’ 50^th Anniversary Party / Family Reunion. It was good to see family that I haven’t seen in years and to see my cousin’s new baby. When I wasn’t family reunioning, I spent time catching up with friends. After going bouldering and rock climbing, I received quite an injury from an unusual place.

Hannah, Alyssa, and I met Julie, Shauna, Laurie, and Kaitlyn for lunch in downtown Denver. After dining at Chilies and convincing Hannah to skip her class the three of us decided to get haircuts and promised to go show the others from lunch when we were done. So the haircutting went well, no physical injuries (although Hannah was slightly traumatized by the notion of her newly chopped not-at-all-mullet-like bangs). So along we went back to the office that our friends work at to show our big reveals all along the way discussing our plans for the rest of the day (nose piercing??!).

 

As we were rounding the corner to get to the door of the building, along comes the most beautiful bright yellow fire hydrant. As my eye caught the obstacle in my path my brain began sending signals to my legs to avoid cette object. Unfortunately, my right pinky toe was a little slow on the comprehension. Yep, she collided head on with the bright yellow fire hydrant. Ouch, but not a big deal I think, as I have much practice in stubbed toes. Then my eye glanced down to make sure no blood was pouring out and to ensure my toe nail was still attached. My eyes instead caught sight of a crooked toe (granted not a 90 degree angle but definitely not pointing its normal direction). Now my foot was pretty numb at this point but as I glanced between my feet noting the difference in pinky toe direction, I began to worry. I noted to Hannah and Alyssa that I ran into the fire hydrant and thought my toe looked broken. Fortunately we were steps away from the elevator in our intended destination building so we continued on decided to assess the damages there. As I hobbled, dizziness began to set in. Safely inside the elevator I grasped the arm rails, became quite pale and informed them that I was going to pass out. Luckily I regained my balance enough to collapse into the office chair instead of the elevator floor.

The kind people there took good care of me gathering ice and water and searching for hospital phone numbers and all of that. Initially I think to call my mom, the nurse, but she was in a certification class at the hospital and, of course like always, had her phone turned off. So my friends called around, I sat on the phone with Denver general, and we debated what to do because of my lack of health insurance. Well rumor had it that they don’t really do anything to fix broken toes anyways so I saw no reason to pay at least $100 to be told that again. My parents and I had tickets to see Cirque de Soleil that night and I was flying back to Chicago early the next morning. So after my mom seemed not concerned in the slightest I decided to hobble along to the night’s activities as planned, minus the nose piercing. As we went along my mom’s concern increased but I became more stubborn that a stupid fire hydrant would not ruin my night.

So here I am in Chicago now with my toes neatly taped together, as painful as it was to get them that way. Hopefully my toe will heal straight and I will once again be able to wear real shoes, even though I prefer sandals anyways.

Thus concludes the epic story of Megatron and the bright yellow fire hydrant. As Hannah so eloquently put it, “I am Optimus Prime. Here to stop your evil doings, Megatron. You will never conquer the world, not while I still have this fire hydrant.”

~ by mstone316 on July 11, 2007.