vituperation

January 28, 2005

“Fred, will you read this and tell me if it’s okay?”

I looked up from State of Fear (two thumbs WAY up, at least for the first 300 pages anyway) to find the spud standing behind the couch, holding a piece of paper out to me. I laid the book aside.

“What is it?”

“My speech for [some class I can't remember].”

“Oh, the animal testing speech?”

“I changed my mind and decided to do it on abortion.”

“How come?”

“I couldn’t find enough information,” she said.

Earlier in the day, she’d come to me, asking for pointers on making a persuasive speech, and at the time she wanted to speak against animal testing. I recommended that the best points would probably be made by sticking to the companies that test products on animals, instead of medical research –

This brings to mind the last time we talked about animal testing, wherein she breathlessly told me that no medical research should be done on animals.

“What about the diseases they find cures for by testing them on animals?” I asked.

She didn’t care, just that scientists should stop doing it.

“But what about all the people who would die?”

Didn’t matter, all that mattered was the animals.

“You’re telling me,” I said, “that if you had to choose between saving a dog and giving your own life, you’d die?”

She said that indeed, that was her opinion, and flounced away mad.

Apparently she’s re-thought it a little, thank God.

– and apparently she couldn’t find what she wanted with Google. God knows there’s enough abortion material out there.

I took the paper and read for a moment. Then…

” ‘Abortion is murder, I say, abortion is murder‘?” I asked, looking up at her. “Who are you, Foghorn Leghorn?”

She cackled.

“The teacher said we had to repeat our main point,” she said. “That’s the only way I knew how.”

“I think maybe she meant something more along the lines of making your main point at the beginning, then after you provide supporting evidence, repeat it at the end to drive it home.”

“And that helps persuade people?”

“It can if you do it well. Can you use pictures? They can be very persuasive, especially when you’re talking about something like abortion.”

In college, my speech teacher told us to pick something controversial to give our speeches on. I chose abortion, and argued against it in my persuasive speech. I used posters and video, and by the time I was done almost everyone in the class was crying, including the teacher. I got a 100 on the speech, and an A in the class.

“I don’t know if we can,” she said. “Probably not.”

I continued reading. A moment later I again looked up.

“You know the part where you ask what might have happened if abortion had been legal when Beethoven was born, how we wouldn’t have all his works?”

“Yes?”

“Someone might turn it back on you, and ask you what might have happened if it had been legal when Hitler was born.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Oh, that’s a good one! Can I use it?”

What do they teach these kids today?

“Um, that actually hurts the point you’re trying to make,” I said. “It doesn’t help it. I was just showing you one of the challenges you might face. You have to be ready to defend your points.”

“Oh.”

We continued our discussion, and I gave her more pointers, like to use the word ‘baby’ instead of ‘fetus’, and to focus on developmental stages to get across that in a huge number of abortions, both a heartbeat and brain activity are ceased. I recommended touching on some of the cases where late term pregnancies are ended, but not to spend too much time on them because it’s a lot more rare than the activists want us to believe.

Not too shabby for someone who thinks it’s none of his business what people do with their own bodies, I think. Hopefully she’ll get a good grade.

Robyn would like you all to know that she’s horrified her child is arguing against abortion.

I would like you all to close your mail clients.

The spud announced yesterday that her computer wouldn’t come on. After checking, I determined that, in fact, her computer wouldn’t come on. I brought it downstairs and spent about an hour messing around with it. Finally, I figured out that the motherboard was shot, and replaced it with the one from my old computer. Problem solved.

As I carried the case for my old computer across the kitchen, the big metal side panel slid off it and fell, edge first, onto the big toe of my left foot. I froze for a second.

Then another.

That wasn’t so bad, I thought, and then a wave of pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before slammed into me like an express train.

I yelled. I reeled. I very nearly cried. That’s really about the best I can give you. Words can’t convey how much this hurt.

Robyn gave me a bag of ice to put on it, but just the touch made my toe quiver, like a tickle. Any time something touched the toe, I felt a weird crawling sensation in my stomach and along my spine, like when a fork scrapes across a plate or nails go down a chalkboard. I can only assume the nerves were so jangled that’s all they could do.

After about 30 minutes of agony (I took four Advils but they hadn’t kicked in) I decided to go to the emergency care place around the corner to see if they would give me a shot of Lidocaine, or poke a hole in the nail if pressure needed to be released. There were four people waiting when I got there, and in 35 minutes they only called one person back to see a doctor.

Fuck that. I left.

The Advil was kicking in by then, and the pain had backed off. I kept myself hopped up on the ibuprofen all night, and switched to Tylenol this morning, so it’s still manageable. I can feel my heartbeat in my big toe now, and I’m still worried that I may need to poke a hole in the nail to release some pressure. I’m pretty sure the nail is history.

Yeah, it does hurt. Like a motherfucker.

Warning: Shown above is a graphic picture of a bruised toe. If you’re the squeamish sort, you may wish to avoid viewing it. If you do decide to look at it and it bothers you, please don’t complain to me, because you were warned.

Thirty-seven years I made it without ever losing a nail, or bruising one. In the last six months, I’ve managed to screw up THREE nails on the same foot. That sucks.

Update: After I put up my entry, I went to a doc-in-the-box to see if he could poke a hole in the nail, to drain off blood and ease some of the pressure under it. I’m telling you, this thing hurts like hell.

He x-rayed it, and it turns out I broke my toe. No wonder it hurts so damn much.

He didn’t drain the nail, because there’s a chance of infection, and infection near a bone break’s not such a good thing. He did, however, give me a decent prescription NSAID to kill the pain, and so far it’s working somewhat.

He told me he could imagine how much it must hurt.

Here are a couple more pictures for your enjoyment. For those of you offended by the fact that there’s hair on my toe, you’ll have to deal with it. The hair, oddly, isn’t even noticeable without a flash on. Then it sort of jumps out at you.

Note that the toe next to it is actually bruised, too.
Note also that that’s one of the toes I lost a nail on.

It’s even purple on the bottom. Nastay.