4 Min Read

Ten…nine…eight…seven…

You got about six more seconds before you’re gonna see ol’ Hamhocks go up into porcine heaven…


“Noooooooo!” I screamed in my head as I watched gravity have its way with the can of soup that I was planning on having for lunch. “Seriously, can’t this wait until tomorrow?!?”

Unfortunately, the laws of physics ignored my request to reschedule my hot date with gravity to a later date. Instead, I got a front row seat at the ‘Watch-A-Canned-Good-Fall-In-Slow-Mo-Towards-Yo-Toes’ Theatre.

And of course it had to be a beautiful day in May that inspires one to wear flip-flops. My toes didn’t stand a chance without the protection of nary even a sock. This wasn’t going to end pretty…

The worst part about this was that I kept my trusty stash of Progresso canned soups1To be honest, it wasn’t Progresso, but that’s the only brand name of soup I can think of in the moment. above our sink, so once I accidentally knocked it off, I had a surprisingly long time to think about my life choices.

“Why, my Good Lord, did you choose today of all days to send such trials and tribulations my way? If you’re really there, then I just want to say you have a really sick sense of humor.”

It was moments like this that the most faithful and devout believer have a wee bit too much empathy for the pagans and atheists.

“I’m going to lose a toe, ain’t I?” I was resigning myself to fate, even before the can had a chance to do its damage. “And, can I just say, ‘f**k my life’? Dear All-Powerful Being In The Sky, if you’re going to be so unkind as to take a toe, the least you could do is wait until I have proper health insurance.”

As I waited for the can to cover the last few inches of its downwards trajectory, I put my hands on my hips and looked impertinently towards the heavens, which in that moment happened to resemble the kitchen ceiling of our bachelor pad on College View Drive.

“Not even one day. You couldn’t just hold off on mangling my limbs one day–nay, 12 hours–could you?!?” I shook my fists to the sky.

*Smack-runch!*

The can made contact. But not with my whole foot, or even with all of my toes. No, it had to channel all of its affection to my left pinky toe. ‘One little toe to take the full blow,’ one might say if this were some sort of twisted nursery rhyme.2Wait, isn’t that redundant? Aren’t almost all nursery rhymes twisted by definition? I mean, London Bridge and Ring Around The Rosy were both about the ----- Plague, for crying out loud.

I felt the shock of adrenaline hit my system as it reacted to the injury of indeterminate magnitude. Against my better judgment, I looked down.

“Oh, sh*t! That’s a lot of blood.” I quickly averted my gaze, regretting that I looked down, as the sight of oxygenated heme sent another, much larger surge of adrenaline through my system.

I was in a full-on cold sweat at this point, barely able to breath.

“It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay…I can turn on the stove an cauterize the wound, and go to the hospital tomorrow,” I assured myself. “Besides, plenty of people lead very successful and happy lives missing whole limbs. I should be able to get by short that little piggy who get beheaded like a French aristocrat in a guillotine,3Holy sh*t, I spelled this word right on my first try, without any help from autocorrect! right? Nine toes are more than enough to get by in life.”

Was it really the trauma of possible losing a piece of my flesh and bone to a can of soup–of all things–that was causing me so much distress? Actually, I didn’t mind that as much as the fact that I was right at 60 days into my first job out of college working for Western Wireless, 4Now a part of Verizon via a couple of mergers. and for the first time in my life, had proper health insurance…starting tomorrow. When I say ‘f my life’, this is what I’m talking about–seriously?!? I lose a toe in a freak canned-soup accident a matter of mere hours before I am financially able to have it reattached, if necessary? This is a sick joke right?

“Time to pay the piper, I suppose,” I said, indubitably using the wrong turn of phrase for the occasion.

I moved the can off of my foot, and through the barely modest amount of blood–adrenaline can turn you into a real drama queen–and I was delighted to see a roughly 1 cm gash on top of my miraculously-still-attached pinky toe. Good news, everybody! This wasn’t anything a little super glue and a BandAid (TM) couldn’t handle!

I was so relieved and excited that I even did a little jig and clicked my heels in celebration like I was a flip-flop-wearing Leprechaun or something, lightly misting the adjacent cabinetry and fridge with a bit of blood spatter.

“Oh, right! I probably should glue that up first…”


Can you, Dear Reader, guess what the point of the story is? I truly doubt you’re reading this in a vacuum, and have no context for what I’ve been diatribing about recently. Surely, you’re aware of the 21-Trap-Flap and the Youthfront Lake Monster, because you read the last two posts.

Right? Right.

That’s right, I think it’s utter nonsense that a matter of a few ticks on the clock would determine whether or not one has to suffer through life with only 19 digits instead of 20 like a normal person. Just like it’s complete and utter tomfoolery that a matter of mere miles can determine whether or not one has to go through life looking like Harry Potty instead of having a smooth and hale forehead like a normal person. Just like how it’s a massive load of bullshit that the fact that your dad is a hard-working but tragically self-employed farmer determines whether you have to go through life with your right elbow looking like Harry Potter instead of having a uniformly dry and flaky elbow like a normal person.

Oh, PS, tragically late spoiler alert: I might have just ruined the plot of my last two posts, but go ahead and go back and read them if you haven’t.

The point is that the U.S. health insurance system5This, ironically, could be a case of ‘biting the hand that feeds’, seeing as how the bread winner in our household is a…health insurance executive. LOL? is complete cow-crap and should be burned to the ground.

Single-payer, universal health care for all. How ----- hard is it? Is it that outrageous that a government should be interested in investing in the well-being of it’s citizens (most of whom are taxpayers, but honestly, that’s irrelevant)?

Oh, and if you think I’m done regaling y’all with tales that are tangentially related to insurance and health care, just you wait. Just you wait until next time, that is…


Content created on: 3/4 November 2023 (Fri/Sat)

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