|
Some of you might say that clipping ones toenails is not a
good topic for a story and I agree with you. While I??™m not
one to humiliate myself by a discourse on personal hygiene,
I've got to tell someone about this and it might as well be
you.
When
you get so old and decrepit and stiff jointed that you can
no longer bend over enough to clip your toenails, you have
to ask for help. Well that's the stage of life I find myself
in now. So I've had to ask my wife, Johnnie, to clip my toe
nails.
It was
hard to do. Almost as hard as giving up driving. Well maybe
not quite that hard, but it sure wasn't easy. I have to make
an appointment with her just like I would a foot doctor. So
the other evening I asked her if I could make an appointment
for the next morning to get my toenails clipped. You know
what she said?
"Let me
check my calendar to see if I can do it in the morning."
Boy,
that's something when you have to make an appointment with
your own wife to have your toenails clipped.
Anyway
she said she could clip my toenails first thing after
breakfast. So the next morning right after breakfast we go
into the bedroom and she has me take off my shoes and socks.
Next she has me lie down on the bed and she says, "Now stay
there. I??™ll be right back."
In a
minute she comes back and sits down on the foot of the bed.
I can see she has pulled a chair up close and has a pile of
things on it.
"What
is all that?" I asked.
She
doesn't answer me, she just reaches over and grabs one of my
feet and pulls it into her lap.
"Ouch,
I??™m tied to that foot you know."
"Oh
don't be such a baby," she says.
Now I
can't see what she is doing because she has her back to me.
But I can feel her starting to clip my toenails. She's got a
death grip on my foot so I won't jerk it out of her hand.
Her long fingernails are digging into my foot like a cats
claws. When I complain about this she says,
"Well
hold still then."
After
she clips my nails, she starts digging under my toenails
with the pointed end of a nail file.
"Owww"
I holler, "what are you doing?"
"Hold
still, I??™m just digging all the gunk out from under your toe
nails."
"Well
your digging to deep, stop it."
I try
to pull my foot away, but those cat claws have me caught.
After
digging under each toenail she finally stops. By this time
my breathing is coming in short gasps and my blood pressure
has gone up by 50 points. I try to take my foot out of her
lap, but she says just a minute and grabs it again. Then I
feel a burning between my toes.
"What
are you doing to me now?" I asked between sobs.
"I??™m
just putting some hydrogen peroxide on these cracks in your
skin between your toes."
After
the burning subsided a little she put some kind of smelly
lotion on my foot and said,
"Ok I??™m
through with this foot, now give me the other one."
Did she
think I was crazy. I jumped up off the bed and ran out of
the bedroom. As I went out the door I heard her say, "come
back here, you sissy. Don't you want the nails on your other
foot clipped?"
"Not
right now" I said, as I ran for the back door.
You
know that is the first time I've been outside, bare footed
in 55 years. It felt pretty good.
What
about the nails on my other foot you ask, well that??™s a
whole nother story for a different time.
?©
copyright 2003
Loren Moore
|
