Told you I was a klutz

I'm not sure if that's something I should be bragging about.

Yesterday I got the privilege of seeing my brother's apartment that he just moved into last weekend. I unfortunately was not around to help him move in, so everything I knew about it was second-hand information from my parents. All I had heard was that it was really nice and that it was a 10 minute walk from his work. Yesterday also happened to be the day that my boyfriend flew back to Ontario, and I had to drop him off at the airport at 7 in the morning. Which meant waking up at 6. Not to mention, it had been an exhausting week. So once I dropped him off, I went home and took a nice, loooooooong nap. A 4 hour nap, to be precise.

When I woke up my sense of time had gone a little wonky, and before I knew it I was running late to meet my brother and I didn't even know his address yet. Once I got that figured out I rushed down there as quickly as I could. I parked my car across the road, hopped out, and set off at a brisk pace towards his front door. There was a slight zig-zag in the sidewalk which I approached without a second thought. I cut the corner a little to closely, and suddenly my little toe, totally exposed to the elements by my flip flop, collided with a nice big rock. Hard. I took a few deep breaths until the worst of the pain passed, then prodded my toe gently to make sure I didn't dislocate or break it. Satisfied that I should be okay, I headed up to check out the apartment.

While my brother took me on the official tour and caught me up on life away from our parent's house, I gradually became more and more aware of a throbbing pain in my toe. For the most part I ignored it, briefly calling attention to it only to amuse my brother with the story of how the injury happened. After chatting for a while he asked if I would like to go for a walk with him down by the water. Why not? I thought, sliding my flip flops back on and being very careful to walk on the inside of my foot. This turned out to be not such a good decision. Soon after we left my whole ankle was starting to hurt because I was not walking on my foot the way nature intended. When my brother asked if I was okay walking in flip flops I informed the shoes weren't the problem; rather, my potentially broken toe was causing my trouble. Given that I was still happily walking beside him, he came up with what was likely the best answer he could think of. "Huh," he said, then tactfully changed the subject. We walked a little farther before agreeing to turn around, after which I promptly headed home and stuck some ice on my toe. Too little, too late.

This morning I attempted to gently slip my feet into my runners so I could ride my bicycle to work. After approximately 1.75 seconds it became painfully clear that closed-toe shoes were not going to be an option today. I dug through my closet and pulled out my only pair of work-appropriate sandals that I could find, which happened to have a strap that crossed right through the middle of my bruise. They were better than the runners though, and my only option. Overall they did fine most of the time, except when I forgot to walk on the inside of my foot. And when I kicked a chair with the same toe. That hurt even more than when I kicked the rock.

Of course, being a klutz, injuries like this are not exactly rare. I still have bruises and bumps on my shin from two months ago when I tripped and bashed my leg on a stage, and I have a few random bruises whose origins are a complete mystery, even to me. I like to tell myself that being a klutz is beneficial; after all, I've never broken a bone despite my best efforts. The years of bashing have strengthened them and made me nearly indestructible. Heck, I could probably be a superhero.

...in my dreams.