Impaled Digits

Growing up, I had the privilege of enduring several ingrown toenail surgeries, which culminated in having a third of the nail removed on each of my big toes.  Of course, by that time I was reading a magazine and whistling to myself while blood spurted across the room like a Monty Python skit.  Yet I was not always the stoic Sam Elliott of toenail surgeries that the doctor saw before him that day.  I had journeyed down a long and excruciating road of impaled digits.  I had paid my dues.

The first time I had it done, I yowled like a cat in heat right from the git-go.  My dad – sitting on the other side of a drawn curtain – passed out cold.  The doctor was administering the shot to numb my toe when, THUNK!, something hit the floor.  The “something” turned out to be dad’s head.  Thinking he…