Down to Nine

We had some weather last night.

Hur hur hur. We have weather every night.

Last night, however, we had WEATHER, the kind Jim Cantore stands around in and masturbates to just out of the camera's eye and under a thick, blue Lands End jacket. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about; I know you've seen the video.

Holy smoke, Robby! Bring me another towel! I've gotta wipe up! This shit's gonna freeze and then I'll have to sandblast it out of my underwear!

After I got home from Otherwork last night, my wife and I were snuggling down into bed, she on her back, me with my hands in places they ought not to be. Bands of heavy rain had been lashing the house off-and-on for hours, sprinkled with intermittent flashes of lightning and dull roars of thunder. In short, it was a perfect rainy night in early spring.

As things were getting more sexytime in the bedroom, there was a brilliant flash of light. It was the kind that announces that a deity of some kind has just arrived and you better sit up, pay attention and write this down: There's some serious news about to be imparted from on high.

This was followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder like the world was splitting in half, and the house shook tremendously for a period of at least fifteen seconds. The roar of thunder slowly spread out across the sky, rolling away through the rain-soaked heavens, reminding others that the fury was just coming toward them and they, too, had better be ready to receive word from above.

We immediately heard the shufflings and snifflings in the hallway, and I gingerly removed my hands from those places that might lead to trouble. A moment later, a child was in the room, and a second child was standing in her room, wondering just what the fuck had happened and why is my father scribbling things down in Aramaic so furiously.

The wife returned the children to their beds, tucked them in. I looked out the window to ensure that the house was not ablaze. This seemed like enough at the time. I turned on the television, hoping to get an update on the weather. Our oh-so-reliable Time Warner Cable...was out. It took the internet with it, as we soon discovered, when the wife tried to pull the radar up on her laptop. We called Time Warner Cable, told them what happened, and then decided it was time for bed.

I carried the laptop back over to its roost. The lights were extinguished. Perhaps sexytime would start again, after Thor/Zeus/Quetzalcoatl had rudely interrupted earlier. As I was returning to bed, it happened.

I kicked the clothes basket next to the bed with my bare foot. More, I kicked the side with the open slots for vents with my pinky toe. Immediately, pain shot up my leg as my pinky toe was ripped off by the plastic edge and thrust up the side of my calf. I screamed in agony, stumbled, zombie-like, to the bed, and fell, my foot aching a sweetly sharp ache, phantom-limb-pain confusing my foot and its sudden lack of toe.

After forcing back tears--I'm a man, dammit!--exhaustion finally got the better of me, the pain finally ebbing enough for me to sleep. When the morning's light shone, I examined my once proud right foot now it all its mangled glory. A nasty gash, a toenail bent back, possible infection with gangrene. And a low, dull ache that is my new, constant companion.

Someone bring me some whisky and the bolt cutters: it's time to end this pain once and for all.