I FOUND HUMANITY…
(LANGUAGE ALERT)
Ok, so here’s the deal… I broke my foot. Yeah, yeah I know:
“How’d you do it? Falling off a ladder? Jump off the roof trying to kill
yourself? Riding a motorcycle? Trying some new elaborate masturbatory position
called “the tantric pretzel” or something??? Training for the next MMA/UFC
fight???”
No.
I was looking at ants.
Yup.
Ants.
See… this is embarrassing, but what on my blog isn’t?
‘They’ say ‘truth be told’ a lot… may as well do it ehh?
Sobriety is a bitch, and stupidity on sobriety is like a
female pit bull: MAJOR *salute* BITCH!
So I am not the cleanest mofo on the planet. I’m not a
hoarder, just don’t tell my tables or couch that. They’re the catch-all for,
well everything. And I am a fan of eating food where I watch TV and nap, so the
couch is it.
Few weeks ago I was eating a sandwich and an ant crawled up
to the plate on my coffee table and continued to walk right around it. It
seemed to be sniffing where it shouldn’t, so it got the ol’ thumbs down on the
oak.
Sorry gladiator ant. I was NOT entertained!
When I lifted my plate, there were 2 more. These aren’t the
big black easy to spot ants, but rather the little ones that make you think “Is
that a crumb or a crumb with legs?” So I called in my buddies Siskel and Ebert
for extermination, and made them watch Sharknado.
At the opening credits the ants were dead and Gene and Roger were back to being
spun in their graves. (To aide you with the voices in my head telling the story,
that’s 2 thumbs down.)
Went to work the next day and opened my bag and there were 3
ants crawling in my bag. It’s a backpack, not a trash bag… so I killed them and
then 3 more popped up. At this point I knew I had a problem. Yet looking deeper
in my bag I pulled out a candy sac from couponing, and there was a bit of a
nest there. I may have killed 15 more by the end of the day. I texted my cousin and he gave me some
exterminator grade goo to put around when I found the nest.
When I got home, 3 more on my table made me get the hard
stuff and start-a-cleanin… half vinegar, half water in a spray bottle and a
Swiffer mop head did the deed… I moved couches, threw out old candy, sprayed
down the table… every bit of wood in my living room beyond the hardwood floor
was drenched in solution and mopped up… it worked like a charm. After that day
(knock on wood) even now writing this weeks later, NO MORE ANTS. It was
amazing.
2 weeks ago I go outside and BOOM there’s this trail of
mini-ants. (Reminds me of tom and jerry when they’d be at a picnic and the ants
would walk down the hammock line and vibrate the line so much that tom and/or
jerry would fall out of the hammock.)… (ALSO channeling Samuel L Jackson *IT’S
MYYYY BEER* in the Snakes on a Plane
trailer:
“Enough is enough!!! I have had it with these MFing ANTS in the MFing
HOUSE!!!”)
I follow the trail back to this crack in the sidewalk and
there it is. Ants coming and going like grand central station. Some with
granules of food going in and out of this crack. And I’m like BINGO BITCHES!
YOU’RE GOING DOWN!!!! So I grab the syringe of exterminator goo and douse the
area around this crack… and the ants love it. It’s serious poison to them, but
they don’t know this yet. And I feel really good about this now. I found the
nest, didn’t have to exterminate the entire neighborhood’s animals in the
process… all is right with the world. Minus the ant holocaust going on, all is
right with the world.
(I figure later in the world of ant billboards there will be
an odd looking teapot in the shape of a bald man’s head with a tremendous bushy
beard and the spout will be in the shape of a syringe, causing controversy in
the JC PENNY of the ant world… )
Later in the night, round 11pm or so, I go outside with my
flashlight app and check on the massacre. Few ants still on the spot, others
back on the trail, but still going strong into/out of grand central. I found I
needed more light so I went back inside and got my spotlight. I decided on
checking around the house where this trail may have ended up or even what they
were FEASTING on. And not to disrupt the trail I step over it down onto the
last step, skipping 2 in the process, in flip flops.
The last step really isn’t a step. It’s a half inch corner
of the steps sticking out of the brick walkway that surrounds my corner of the
city block. Well, I hit that half inch corner and immediately I heard a “crack”
(which is weird how it was audible yet made no sound… I think it’s like why
your voice sounds ridiculous on a recording but normal to you in your own head.
Resonance? I forget… ) as my foot hit the side of the stair and down I went. I
skinned my knee as if I was 8 years old, and I ended up on my back. Five
seconds ago I was king of the world, now I’m a turtle on his back… laughing.
“OUCH!” I thought… “I hope no one saw me!”
Just then a car that had started to pull away from a stop
sign at my corner as I started my descent decided to back up and ask… “Are you
ok?” with that odd undertone of held-in laughter… I know this undertone because
I have asked many myself with this same thought of “DON”T LAUGH… YET!”
“YEAH YEAH I’M FINE! MAYBE MORE EMBARASSED THAN IN PAIN BUT
I AM FINE… THANKS FOR ASKING!” do you need help he asked?
“NO NO JUST DRIVE AWAY! YOU CAN LAUGH AT ME MAN IT HAD TO
HAVE BEEN FUNNY TO SEE. I’LL LIVE!” alright he said i was just checking...
And he drove away… nice of the guy to back up… yet I heard
him break into laughter as he drove away, as I would do. and then I did. It was
the dumbest fall in human history, along with the dumbest reason to fall… “I
didn’t want to disrupt the ant trail, your honor.”
I went to work the next day and using an umbrella as a cane,
most suggested to call my doctor. So I did and he sent for xrays and low and
behold I broke my 5th metatarsal bone, or in layman’s terms, the
‘you’re an idiot if you break this one’ bone.
The un-funny bone.
I was fitted with a boot, and given a cane to use that my
grandfather used in the years before his death. It was one of those things that
was an honor to have and to hold, let alone actually USE because I needed it.
and let’s face it: it worked better than a pocket umbrella-cane. (just for the
visual… it’s a full sized umbrella.)
But a funny thing happened.
In the days following I found something I didn’t think
existed anymore. I found humanity. People moved out of my way, held doors,
waited for me, were polite in every turn, and I think even wiped my ass once or
twice without asking. That last one was welcomed but weird nonetheless… For the
most part I am grouchy working for the government with the idiots that work
here. But the folks who showed me there was still good in the world made me
feel better about them too. People even stopped by to ask how / what happened…
and I am stuck to giving the embarrassing above story on how I broke my foot.
One guy even said “C’mon dude, in this case you have to lie about it…” and my
forever retort is “HEY! YOU ASKED!”
It makes me cry just thinking about how nice people have
been.
These were complete strangers to me, seeing me like a bird
with a bum wing, and offering me some popsicle sticks and string to wrap around
it to get me back in the air again.
4 weeks ago these same folks would let the elevators close
in my face. Slammed regular doors in my face… anything to rearrange my face, as
my mirror has told me to do for years… but now they smiled and made awkward
conversation seem, well, not so awkward.
My advice: DO SOMETHING COOL to break your fifth metatarsal
bone in your foot. It’s painful but once you get the boot on it’s not too bad
(thanks Vicodin) and you will see what I mean. It’s
incredible.
And I KNOW when I am healed I will go back to those doors
slamming into my face, elevators not being held, and I’ll go back to being the
weird guy in the corner. And in a lot of
ways it’s exactly what I want. Normalcy.
But for now, I’ll take humanity however I can get it.
