Toe Hair

After reaching for my favorite brownie recipe within moments of finishing dinner, I decided I needed to ease my tension with something other than chocolate. And although my brownies are mostly vegan and mostly organic – those ingredients still pack some pretty potent hip altering effects. Truth be told, it’s not the chocolate that this middle aged and over tired single mom is longing for – it’s the butter and the sugar. As a child my mom used to hide the sugar jar from me. Little did she ever dream that I would scale like a squirrel monkey up the counter, to find it stashed in the “too hard to reach for every day purposes” cupboards above the refrigerator.

But I digress. As I contemplated throwing my sneakers on and obtaining a healthy Zen-like moment wherein my body is sculpted by a rigorous jog, my nine year old boldly states that she would like to come with. Down shifting my weight loss aspirations, I decide – we might as well take the dogs.

Ambling down our long driveway, I watch my daughter’s shiny dark hair swing across her back like a pendulum marking her every step. Two feet in front of her is our faithful Irish setter, by nature, already looking worn and tired. Immediately to my right, and attached to the red leash held firmly in my hand, is our white boxer, still trying feverishly to work out her wiggles.

Noticing by her ability to easily keep a good pace while chattering constantly, it becomes obvious my daughter’s lung capacity is far better than mine. But the air smelled divine, my daughter reveled in her chance to command the road in front of us, and the dogs had a moment to scrape their nails down. All is good. Except for the small intrusive, stabbing feeling occurring in my left little toe.

As my ever effervescent daughter announces that she wants to run up the dirt road leading to our house, and then readily charges up that same hill, the white boxer to my side looks up at me as if to say, “Aren’t we going too?” I’m pretty sure the flat stare I gave her spoke volumes. But I don’t think it said what she wanted to hear. I know this as she continually kept looking up at me. Checking.

Making our way into the house, unhooking the dogs, kicking off my sneakers and sliding across the drool that mapped the dog’s journey from their water bowl to their beds, I noticed something odd. Throwing my foot up onto the counter (yes, I can still do that), I squint my eyes and examine the slender object protruding from my little toe. Dislodging the foreign object from my toe I hold it up to the light where my daughter and I examine it and ponder how a single white, boxer hair managed to burrow into my skin. Good Lord, I wonder to myself, how long was that in there?

Next time, instead of easing my tension with sugar and butter, perhaps I need to get out the vacuum. Apparently the hairs are everywhere; adding a whole new dimension to the print hanging on my wall entitled – Love Me, Love My Dog.

Sane