I Hope Fran Drescher’s Ears Are Ringing

 

Well, back on February 5, I justified all the money I spent on my hair by telling my readers that I did not get pedicures. As you can tell by this picture, I’m a big, fat liar.

In all fairness, I had a reason.

I found a beautiful pair of Born shoes for $20 (regularly $90) at T.J. Maxx. As I was trying to break the shoes in, I noticed my left big toe was really sore. Great, I was getting an ingrown toenail.

Usually, it’s my right toe that gives me all the trouble:

I needed a vacation. I realized that Ken and the kids had Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, so I booked a one-night stay in Birch Bay.

On Sunday afternoon, I packed my clothes. We would be leaving any minute. My bathing suit was the first thing to go in. I was going to be sure to wear that as much as possible while I still had cleavage to celebrate.

When we finally arrived in Birch Bay, Ken went to check out the fitness room. The kids and I hopped into the hot tub. A couple was there ahead of us, soaking.

“I can hardly wait for Hawaii,” I said to the kids. “It will be nice to swim in the ocean.”

“Can we go?” Jonathan asked.

“I’ll save up my own money, Mom,” Michael added.

“Me, too,” Adriana said.

“An anniversary trip isn’t very exciting with kids, you know,” was my comeback. “You guys don’t really want to go to Hawaii anyway. You’d be bored.”

“Beaches, pineapple, swimming; we’d be real bored,” Adriana said, sarcasm dripping from her lips.

It was then that the pain hit.

I should have known. That stupid, big right toe was always causing me grief. It hurt every night during my bath. Why didn’t I remember that before I tried to cram my body into this red bathing suit?

“Ow.” I was so profound sometimes. What else was there to say?

“Ow, ow, ow.” I guess I could say it three times in a row.

“What is it, Mommy?” Jonathan asked, concern all over his face.

“My toe.” I was trying to be quiet. “Neuropathy… Ohhhhh.”

Michael came to my side and put his hand under my arm. “What do you want me to do, Mom?”

I stuck my right foot out of the hot water. In the midst of my pain, I was amazed that I could sit on my butt in the hot tub and be limber enough to stick my offending appendage out of the water. My satisfaction was very short-lived, however, when I saw the look on the woman’s face across the way.

Oh great, she thinks I have some sort of communicable foot fungus. She looks ready to bolt out of here like a hot potato.

I bolstered my mental faculties and put my foot slowly back into the water. I imagined her pinching her husband beneath the bubbles so that he would be alert to the fact that they were in the water with a freak.

My toe resisted being put back in the water. Several more moans escaped my lips, against my better judgment.

“Mom, you want me to get Dad?” Adriana offered.

“Ow, ow, ow.”

So while I had managed to get my bathing suit wet (barely), it wasn’t quite the relaxing time I had envisioned when I booked the vacation.  [Cancer Is A Funny Thing, pp. 154-155]

I don’t normally like people touching my feet, but I didn’t know how to fix my ingrown toenail.

“Hi, Marie, I’m Debbi. I’ll be working on your feet today,” the woman greeted me.

“Hello, Debbi. I think you worked on my feet once a long time ago. I was going through chemotherapy treatment at the time. Leanne Marshall treated me to a pedicure.”

“I remember you.”

Debbi and I talked and talked as if we’ve been friends for ten years, instead of meeting for the second time in our lives.

“You need to contact Ellen DeGeneres,” she continued our conversation, “and go on her show.”

“No, you contact Ellen. And make sure Fran Drescher is there. I want to be friends with her, because of our common cancer experience.”

I wonder if it would be weird to start a petition to make this happen. One thing’s for sure… my toenail better be healed up by then. While I won’t be dancing my way out to meet Ellen, I would like to walk in gracefully and not land on my face.

 

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