Sorry About Your Foot, But How Is The Shoe?

Fellow needle-phobes will understand why I never get a flu shot, only have my blood tested every five years, and am woefully behind on my tetanus booster. Needles scare the heck out of me.

Walking in the street after a family party on Sunday, I stepped on a rusty nail-tack bastard that went up through my shoe directly into my foot. As I struggled to twist the nasty spike out, I worried less about my physical pain and more about the possibility that my favorite pair of leopard pumps might be permanently and terminally scarred. Later in the evening, my thoughts turned even more macabre. Would my lapse in immunity prevention lead to loss of a limb? Lock jaw? Death? Would my foot fall off and impede my cute-shoe wearing?

Monday morning I hobbled into the doctor's office in a sassy pair of vintage Mary Janes (no amount of pain can keep a shoe lover down), and explained my situation. The nurse handed me a ledger that listed possible side effects of a tetanus shot, and I weighed those against tetanus symptoms. Finally, I agreed to receive the booster. I didn't look at the needle as the nurse held my hand. Brave and resolute, I received my medicine with only a few tears and will likely not suffer additional damage from the ordeal.

Later a practical shoe-loving friend reminded me of my priorities, "I commiserate for the foot, but my real concern is for the poor shoes. How are they? Is it fatal or will they survive to be worn another day?" We are both relieved that except for a tiny blemish where the nail-tack breached, my shoes should pull through this misfortune mostly unharmed.