BREAK A LEG

Dear Reader,
I have been a bad friend.  I have not called or written in a very long time.  You must be nearly sick with worry. Calm yourself, caring compatriot, all is nearly well in my world.  I say "nearly" because my Girl13.5, my offspring, my baby, broke herself.

I wish I could tell you that she had been playing soccer in a cow pasture, or playing basketball at the Ice Capades. I long to regale you with a tale of her running through the forest with a cougar hot on her heels, and how she outwitted and outran the fierce feline.  I am a truthful sort, so I will have to confess how the event came about.  Brace yourself.

She was running in her P.E. class.  She was doing what she was supposed to be doing.  Indoors.  On a wooden floor.  Wearing running shoes.

With her broken fibula has come a variety of accessories, including crutches and an air-cast.  Since she was a young girl (I would say "small", but she was never vertically impaired), she has loved all sorts of medical equipment, and asked for various implements for Christmas.  Santa has brought her a finger cot, a sling, a wrist brace and a cane, to name a few gifts from past years.  Bandaids routinely find their way into her Christmas stocking (that is no surprise to the loyal readers who remember the Bandaid Nazi, and also that unpleasant episode in Wedding Dress Woes), as do rolls of athletic tape, gobs of gauze, and masses of moleskin. Just last month she was bemoaning the fact that she had not gotten any crutches for Christmas. Less than two weeks later she got her wish.  I am afraid that the sparkle wore off of them after about two days.

We have incorporated the word "stockinette" into our daily vocabulary.  Being the well-read reader that you are, you are probably wondering what on earth we are doing with a fabric usually used to make undergarments (how does nearly every blog come back to this?).  In our case, the stockinette is a very stretchy tube, basically a foot-less sock, that Girl13.5 wears under her air-cast. This stockinette has several very important jobs, one being to keep her toes warm.  Most importantly, it absorbs the disgusting diaphoresis coming from that foot.  Let me tell you, Sensitive Reader, there is some fetid funk that ripens in that sweaty situation.

The day that Poor Girl13.5 had to go to the doctor and exhibit her extremity in that diminutive exam space, the malodor was the biggest thing in the room. We supplicated for a solution from the sympathetic specialist about the surprising stench, but he was as stumped as we were. I am telling you, Sensitive Reader, thank your stars that I have not activated smell-o-vision on this blog or you would be staggered by the stink.

I know that you, Empathetic Reader, are feeling uncomfortable for Poor Girl13.5 being exposed like this.  Please know that there is a happy, and informative ending to this nasty narration.

It so happened, after purchasing Gold Bond Foot Spray (smells good, we agree on that) and Anti-Monkey Butt Powder (we were desperate), we found in our own pantry some Shoe-Pourri. Another Christmas stocking surprise, its purpose is to de-odorize shoes.  In our house, this can mean any number of athletic shoes: soccer cleats (an outdoor sport in the Pacific Northwest, need I say more?), basketball shoes, volleyball shoes, track shoes with spikes, even hiking boots; and they all smell bad. Shoe-Pourri's motto is "Just a spray takes the stink away" and they are not kidding. This spray is magic.

We now have a nightly routine.  Girl13.5 removes the offensive apparatus and carefully creeps through the house to do her nightly lavation.  I vigorously spritz the neoprene part of the air-cast and hang it near the wood stove to dry.  I put the exo-skeleton of the cast on the boot dryer after applying a couple of quick squirts to it. Whereas before I could not approach the accoutrement without gagging, the administration of the Shoe-Pourri has really been life-altering. Girl13.5 can now go to school without worrying that her classmates will identify the effluvium issuing from her foot.  Additionally, and perhaps most notably, we can ride in the car together with the windows up.

She has informed me that, as soon as her ankle has healed, she would like to take up LaCrosse.  I said, "Knock yourself out!"