Jack Nicholson Was Wrong. I Can Handle The Truth

A couple of weeks ago, I had to text Taco Larry about Shane’s feet. He’s having a real issue with ingrown toenails. Usually, Taco Larry can handle just about anything, but when I sent him oozy ugly pictures of Shane’s toes and a text that said, “Thoughts?” his response was “Podiatrist”.

So I made an appointment and sure enough, the kid inherited his Dad’s gnarly toes and all ten are ingrown. That combined with the extra wides he inherited from me means he’s basically screwed for shoes for the rest of his life.

Sorry, Bubba.

The podiatrist was really cool. She’s really young. Or she seemed young. Or maybe I’ve reached that age where everybody younger than me seems young. I don’t know.

Anyway, apparently the procedure they do now is not nearly as horrible as it used to be. I remember my Mom had to have her entire big toenail removed and they deadened the root so it wouldn’t grow back.  They didn’t kill the whole root, though, and these weird little corners grew out on either side of her big toe and her big toe forever looked like it had teeth with a David Letterman sized gap in between.

They still do a similar procedure now, but they don’t remove the whole toenail. They just cut out the most outer edges on either side and put acid in the gaping holes to kill just that part of the root. This causes the toenail to be more narrow, but those big ugly corners don’t grow into the skin.

In other words, it’s a medieval torture ritual performed under local anesthesia.

The cool thing is, they can perform this procedure in the office and then send you on your way afterward. The bad thing is, they only do a few toes at a time, so we’ll have to make multiple trips to complete both feet.

I’m not going to describe the procedure in detail, but suffice it to say, there was a good amount of bleeding and I had a front row seat. The doctor asked if I was going to be ok watching.

I laughed. It’s a valid concern, but she has no idea. I’m very macabre with my taste in real-life crime shows. Medical procedures have never bothered me. When they have to draw blood or give me a shot and they tell me to look away, I have to look directly at the needle going into my skin because my imagination is far worse than anything they could possibly do to me.

I actually sat in on the surgery when they removed a skin cancer from The Husband Dude’s face. I had never heard of them allowing a family member to sit in the operating theater and watch a procedure, but the doctor told me I could if I wanted to, so I did.

Now, I didn’t stand over the doctor’s shoulder and observe, but I sat in the corner on a chair and at one point, I watched them stretching the skin on his face to pull it together and make a nice, neat little stitch to minimize the scarring.

When I told THD later that they had his face stretched out like a deflated balloon and it looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, I don’t think he believed me. But trust me on this, it was really gross and really cool all at the same time.

I know some of you are shaking your heads and may have even stopped reading by now, because this stuff really bothers some people.

I guess I’ve just never been like other people in that regard. It’s not that I don’t get grossed out. I just have an iron stomach. I probably could’ve had a good career in the medical field if it weren’t for all that math and science shit.

You know, the whole basis of a medical career.

I’ve always been a meet-things-head-on person too. Don’t sugarcoat stuff. Just tell me the truth. I can handle that much more than dancing around the subject and I usually hate euphemisms too.

You didn’t lose your loved one. They died. Losing them implies you have no clue where they are.

I use euphemisms for the sake of other people, but I hate them for myself. My childhood dentist found that out the hard way.

I’ll never forget the first time I got a cavity and had to have it filled. The dentist had to call my mother back into the exam room because I was losing my shit.

Mom knew precisely how to deal with me.

Mom: What’s the problem?

Me: You told me I was having a cavity filled.

Mom: You are. So what’s the problem?

Me: I asked them if they were going to have to give me a shot and they said they don’t give shots, they give bubbles. And when I asked what a bubble was, they told me not to worry about it because it would tickle. Then they got THAT out!

I pointed to a syringe with a rather large needle sitting on a tray.

My mother turned and glared at Dr. B.

A little backstory: my mother despised Dr. B, but he was considered one of the best pediatric dentists in El Paso and his office was really close to our house, so she continued to bring us to him until we were teenagers.

You may be asking why she despised him. It’s because he had previously been married to my Kindergarten teacher and then carried on a very flagrant affair with his office secretary, who had a penchant for slutty clothes that my mother deemed inappropriate for a medical professional’s office. She also had a habit of wearing a gold chain around her neck with a pendant that said, “Oh Shit”.

My mother would spend the rest of her life grumbling about how Dr. B could leave “such a fine, classy lady” for “such a piece of trash”.

Also, this was 1978 and Dr. B had a really big pornstache and would wear a couple of gold chains over a hairy chest that was exposed by one too many buttons being open on his shirt. Mom had a distaste for anybody that looked like they were Six Degrees of Separation away from starring in “Deep Throat”.

So Mom glared at Dr. B and in her best condescending tone, offered this advice:

“She may only be seven years old, but she’s used to being addressed as a small version of an adult. You need to explain to her EXACTLY what you’re going to do, in simple terms she can understand. But don’t lie. She’ll know you’re lying.”

I wish you could actually hear the tone she used. Before “mansplaining” was a thing, Mom was an expert at counter-mansplaining to a man and making them feel like they were two inches tall. She also had a non-resting bitch face that could decimate a room.

God, I miss my mother.

And no, I didn’t lose her. She’s dead. I know exactly where she is right now.

Needless to say, once Dr. B explained the procedure to me in its entirety, I willingly laid back in the chair and allowed him to proceed. This would begin my lifetime desire to not have sugarcoating with my bad news.

Just fucking tell me. Or in the case of The Husband Dude’s face or Shane’s toes, just let me watch.

Shane, on the other hand, is exactly one half me and one half his Dad. He kind of wants to know what’s going to happen, but not in great detail because he’s squeamish and the sight of blood makes him want to throw up.

Once he was laying back in the chair and his toes were numb, though, he spent the whole time staring at this phone while the edges of his toenails were literally being yanked out. At one point, he peeked over at his feet and could see the long swabs with the acid on them that the doctor had placed inside the wounds and left there to soak for a bit.

“Hey look! I have chopsticks in my feet!” He snapped a photo for his Instagram.

Teenagers.

I took him home with bandages on his toes. The doctor had a sense of humor.

Sorry, I don’t have a real ending for this story.

Instead, I’ll show you a picture of a breakfast hamburger I had recently. I never had a “breakfast hamburger” before. It’s just a regular hamburger with a fried egg on it and it’s sitting atop a bed of breakfast potatoes. I ate it at a little eatery in Bixby, Oklahoma called Le Jardin. It’s an adorable little restaurant that I’m pretty sure Chef Gordon Ramsay would approve of.

One of the nicest things about it is that the owner works to employ women who have been in the criminal justice system and give them an opportunity to learn skills, support themselves and their families, and create a positive work history for when they move on to the next job.

If you live here locally, you really should check it out!

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.