Toe Tingling Tales

The end is near. Or rather, the end is obvious. That is, I now can see where the end begins, and it is a surprise, of sorts: not the end I thought it would be.
Most people expect the end will begin near the top, and work its way down. Those ends get all the publicity these days – and a large portion of our health care dollar. But for me, and countless others I suspect, it all begins –or ends, with the feet: the toes to be specific.
You begin to get careless, with your feet.
Not that any of us was ever were really careful with our feet: but then, we didn’t have to be. When I was a careless yoot - which is to say, by definition, “footloose and fancy free”, I went around barefoot all the time and, as a consequence, my feet took a real hammering - and it showed.
But those frequent stubs, whacks, smashes and crushings did not seem to merit any special attention, then. It didn’t seem to matter that, by the time I was fifteen, each big toe was already headed in opposite directions: it didn’t seem to have any effect on me at all (what does, at that age?).
I suppose if I had been a World Class Sprinter, or a toe model, or a ballet dancer, the effect of years of toe neglect might have been more apparent, a more serious matter. But for me, and most – the feet are simply transportation. No one looks too closely at the train they boarded at the station - until and unless it breaks down.
And even when a bus or a train, or a car breaks down – it doesn’t necessarily change our lives: it is usually a minor inconvenience, a temporary delay.
Ah but when the feet start to go, to really go, well, everything else follows quickly – no pun intended (well maybe a little pun intended).

This is not some abstract observation: it is difficult to observe the feet abstractly. Besides, any objectivity I might have possessed regarding my feet was lost, when I smashed the older brother of the pinkie toe on my right foot the other evening.
It’s a pathetic, but I am sure, familiar story.
I had stayed up late, watching some gruesome remake of a gruesome but technically unsophisticated B-Movie of the 50’s, and had fallen asleep on the couch. When I woke and turned off the television, I was surprised to find the entire first floor in darkness. I was still in that happy state of couch-bound semi-consciousness though, so I didn’t bother to turn on any lights. Instead, I shuffled robotically from the room, heading for the stairs, hoping to quickly regain full unconsciousness as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I never made it that far.
In my diminished state I forgot about the new bookcase around the darkened corner – an impediment which I had purchased some six months before just to have someplace to store excess stuff over Christmas. And though I seemed to be moving at a snail-like pace, I somehow managed to get every ounce of my 200-plus pounds behind that aforementioned toe as it slammed squarely in to the bottom of that faux-wooden furniture – hollow, lightweight furniture made deadly heavy by all of the weighty tomes that secured it to the earth.
It was a perfect shot.
A slam dunk.
If I had been hitting a golf ball off a tee with my toe, it would have gone 300 yards. Instead, that same energy shot out of that tiny appendage and then – having no place to go, rebounded directly into that same toe, crumbling its tiny little bones and producing the sound that a cheese curl makes when an eight year old boy is savoring its flavor.
I won’t bore you with the details.
I won’t describe for you the progression of colors and inflammation: how the toe blackened, the blood curdled at the juncture of toe and foot, the nail withered, and the other toes seemed to cringe in terror at the sight of their crumpled comrade.
The details of this specific toe’s demise in fact, matter very little. It is the resulting chain of events where your attention should be focused. Because, the lack of a toe – for all intents and purposes, created a series of related issues that far outweighed any pain that the actual broken toe produced.
You see, what you can’t do any more in the middle ages – or not nearly as efficiently as before – is compensate. I should say what “I can’t do anymore’.
Youth can be defined, accurately I think, as a kind of ‘compensation’ for what follows.
We are no more coordinated, or intelligent, or attractive than at any other time in our life when we are young – but we are able to compensate for our failings, and fallings. We say something stupid, and feign ignorance. We do something stupid, and feign ignorance.
The older person however, cannot compensate.
The wood has dried out.
The flexibility is gone.
We cannot take the day off, or sleep in.
Ignorance is no longer a valid excuse.
So from this toe bone turned to sawdust an army of ailments soon descended.
First, there was soreness in strange places.
Then twinges in odd places.
Then – like the sounds of far off celebrations on July 4th, small cannons and crackling strings of firecrackers could be heard going off.
My hips clicked.
My ankles popped.
My vertebrae jawed at one another.
It’s as if I was a plastic action figure that some sadistic kid had taken apart – arm by arm, leg by leg, and now someone had the unenviable task of putting me back together again.
It was all supposed to go together, but none of it seemed to fit.
It was all supposed to fit, but none of it seemed to go together.
For the lack of a toe the entire flesh-covered superstructure began to waver and wobble, and just staying upright became a challenge.
You know that song that goes, “the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone”, and so on? It should be rewritten to include the lynch pin of our entire ‘wouldn’t it be cool to walk upright’ facade: the toe bone!
For without the support of that peanut sized “falangeal” appendage there is additional strain on the calves, greater difficulty in balancing, additional twisting of the hips, and a host of otherwise insignificant muscles yanking on your back so that eventually the tension reaches all the way up from the hollow fold of skin that once housed a stout toe and pulls the chain on your skull.
Your head is the clapper in a giant bell.
It feels as if your brain is about to be sling-shot over the rooftops.
The end is near, and from what you can see it’s black and blue and curled up like Alladin’s favorite slippers.
What a way to go!