Snakefish

I have this longstanding theory that no one wants to hear what you have to say if you begin your story with “This one time, I was really drunk,” or “I had this crazy dream last night!” Unless you have the best drunk story ever, and you don’t, or the crazy dream was a crazy sex dream about the person you’re talking to, these openers are going to make everyone’s eyes glaze over. I now have a third topic for this theory: no one wants to hear about any injuries you are currently suffering from.

A few months ago I noticed my foot was hurting, so I decided I should a) ignore it, and b) try running on it. I like to take my own medical advice, since I have a degree in English and all. That worked out really well, and by last week my foot hurt so badly that I couldn’t even put all of my weight on it. When you walk with a limp, you look pathetic, mostly because you just look like you’re faking. So I went to a podiatrist, who took some X-rays and was like, Oh yeah, you’re totally fucked. I had some ultrasound therapy, which was basically this nurse about my age rubbing cold goo on my heel with a metal wand for five minutes while neither of us spoke or made eye contact. Then they gave me an aircast and I’m supposed to go back tomorrow to get fitted for something called orthotics. I didn’t think to ask what orthotics were exactly, but judging by the name, I’m guessing they’re totally hard-on inducing. If there’s one thing guys love more than a girl with a limp, it’s a girl with orthopedic shoes and/or possibly a prosthetic of some kind. I’m not even going to google “orthotics,” because that way I’ll have a surprise tomorrow at the doctor’s office. My life is that boring. Did I mention I also have gray hairs? I’m thinking about just throwing in the towel right now, start canning my own preserves, calling people dearie, clipping coupons to mail my relatives along with a cute bit out of Reader’s Digest I thought they’d get a real kick out of.

Anyway. So I shuffled all over the place this weekend, and at Ryan’s barbecue yesterday, everyone I talked to was very nice and asked me what I’d done to my foot. The explanation was so long and boring, and everyone made this wincing face while I told them, and I felt like a real downer just by answering. It’s like when people ask me what I do for a living: I want to say, ah, we don’t really have to talk about that, because trust me, you’re just going to have to pretend like you want to hear the answer. Likewise, you don’t get parties started by talking in detail about your bone spurs. Then, last night, my roommate Caroline gave me the best advice she’s ever given: when people ask what happened to my foot, just shrug and say, “Snakefish.” Like, you know how it is, tale as old as time, whaddya gonna do? Snakefish.