Blah, blah, mirth, blah: May 2011

For once it wasn't me, I wasn't even in the same room at the time. Well I guess technically our family room is open to the kitchen, so it could be construed as one room. But I was on the couch and it happened in the kitchen. And I wasn't involved in the incident.

So let's back up a month or so to when Mister C most recently hiked into then out of the Grand Canyon with friends over a five day period. He does that periodically, usually with no major issues. This time when he came out, he had the two black toenails. I know, gross, I'm with you. Believe me, for someone with a "foot issue" like me, it was ten times beyond gross edging into horrifying territory. But I digress. For whatever reason the toenails on his big toes were damaged and looked pretty bad. We thought for sure they were going to fall off at some point but they never did. They just hung in there looking gross and making me gag whenever I accidentally glanced at them.

Fast forward to last night. Mister C had been kind enough to pick up Chipotle on his way home from shopping and we were all getting ready to watch the latest Harry Potter together. Master J and I were in the family room starting to enjoy our meals and Mister C was poking around in the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him open the fridge door. Suddenly there was the sound of something hitting the shelf in the fridge and a loud yell, followed by a weird "THUD!" sound. Mister C started saying something about something hitting his toe and what a mess. I jumped up to see what the heck was going on because from where I was sitting, the recliner was blocking most my view. As I came around the recliner I saw a bottle of O'Doul's laying on it's side on the tile pouring out near-beer. Mister C was still standing in the open door to the fridge, holding his foot up and looking horrified. And when I looked up, I saw beer coming off my ceiling, running down the upper cabinets, hitting the counter top, running down the lower cabinets and pooling on the floor. It was also splattered all over my fridge, my cell phone and my camera case. Thank goodness the camera itself was protected. By the time I had taken all of this in, Mister C had hopped over to the nearest seat and was holding a wad of paper towels to his toe. The paper towels were very bloody and there was blood on the floor. What the hell?

Eventually we sorted out that Mister C had somehow lost his grip on his O'Doul's, which had bounced down the shelves in the fridge and headed for the tile. In his one moment of trying to save the situation, he attempted to stop the descent of the bottle with his foot. The bottle had hit his toe with enough force to pop the already wounded toenail almost completely off (GAG! BLECH! HACK!) It had then proceeded to hit the floor anyway which was the loud thud I had heard. The force of hitting the floor on the bottom of the bottle after being shaken up on the way down had built up enough pressure in the bottle to dislodge the twist top lid off and shoot the contents up onto my ceiling before the bottle shot to the side, spewing liquid everywhere as it rolled to a stop near the dining room.

Figuring there's no point in crying over spilled near-beer and bloody toes, I started cleaning up the beer. Starting at the ceiling and working my way down, I got it all cleaned up in about twenty minutes while Mister C continued trying to staunch the bleeding of his wounded toe. Once the mess was cleaned up, I patched up his toe the best I could. The toenail was still held on by enough at the base that it still wouldn't be coming off, but obviously we couldn't leave his toe exposed to the elements and needed to stop the bleeding. Also, I don't think I could stomach seeing it in that condition. So I got it wrapped up and we moved on with our evening.

So what have we learned here? For starters, O'Doul's bottles are amazingly resilient. Honestly I would have totally expected any glass bottle falling off the top shelf of the fridge to shatter when it hit the floor. I'm impressed that it didn't break and it sure made cleaning up a whole lot easier. Secondly, it's amazing how far reaching the liquid in a dropped bottle can spatter. Seriously, amazing. Third, dogs like the taste of beer (which I knew) as do some cats (which I did not know.) Fourth, the lid that got shot off will not be found near the fridge where everything started nor near the final resting place of the bottle but somewhere totally unexpected. And lastly, if you think feet and toes in general are kind of gross, just know that they do not improve when the toenails are standing almost straight up and blood is pouring out.