In which I say eleven things about a nail and one about a poem

1.
So I got this hole in my foot. Actually, it was a nail.

2.
They re-roofed our house a few weeks ago, and since then, we've picked up fifty nails at least from the yard. This one, I found the hard way.

3.
This one that I found with my foot was pretty rusted.

4.
It'd been a while since I'd had a tetanus shot, so we got to spend our Sunday evening visiting the fine folks at the Emergency Room in South Lake Hospital. Fortunately, things were quiet, so we were in and out of there in very little time.

5.
I previously had no idea what our copay was for an ER visit. Now I know. It's a hundred bucks.

6.
The nurse in the ER was delighted when she heard that I was wearing Crocs when I stepped on the nail. I know, you're going to tell me they're ridiculous looking, and you're right. But they also don't hold on to all of that bacteria that fill my retired running shoes, so evidently, if you're going to step on a nail, Crocs are pretty much an ideal thing to be wearing.

7.
Actually, work boots would be ideal. I stepped on a nail a couple of weeks ago while I was wearing work boots and didn't even know it until I heard the nail scrape against the driveway. But if you're going to go all the way and get a puncture wound, it seems that Crocs are much preferable to other forms of footwear.

8.
I kept trying to talk to everyone in the ER about John Thoreau. He was Henry's brother, and he died a pretty gruesome death of tetanus after cutting himself while stropping a razor. He was 27, and he died in Henry's arms. "That's not the way I want to go," I kept telling people.

9.
So I got a tetanus shot.

10.
But the good news was that the ER doc cleared me to run, as long as I promised to clean the wound well as soon as I finished running.

11.
So I promised, and I ran the next morning, and I cleaned the wound well when I was done. But while I was running, it was hard to resist thinking a little about Steve Prefontaine, who won the three mile at NCAAs in 1970 with a dozen stitches in his foot. It's hard to imagine enduring pain like that.

12.
Also, did I mention I have a poem over at Wonderfort?