Nothing quite compares to the pain of broken toes. And the thought of how my toes were broken makes it even more painful. I was hauling 150 lb. concrete pavers in my minivan for a landscaping project. Before I left the house I looked at my Red Wing boots and said, “Eh, I don’t need those. I’ll keep my skate shoes on since I’m hitting the skate park later.” I hired these dudes to help me load the pavers in the minivan and one of the guys stacked a paver upright against the rear hatch door. Before we took off, I eyed that paver and even checked to see if it was going to bang around. My helper dude gave me the look like “¿Qué onda ese? Relax bro.” I was like, okay, cool, but the whole ride home it was banging back and forth every time I stopped and took off. The last position it was in must have been leaning against the hatch because when I opened the door that 150 lb. paver came tumbling down on top of my tender little toes.

The weirdest thing when you get hurt is how everything happens in slow motion. When I opened the door I felt something heavy against it. Then I heard this weird scraping sound and out came the paver floating down like a cartoon. I watched it fall on my foot. I was thinking what the f*%k was that? What the f*%k is that? Oh my God. A paver just fell on my foot. Holy crap, that hurts. In reality it happened like this: open door, scrape, splat, aaaaaiiiiieeeee!!!!! I was hopping around screaming like a little girl and the two Mexican dudes were just frozen. That’s the last I saw of them too.

I hobbled upstairs, Dana grabbed some ice and painkillers and I retreated to the couch. I was kind of freaking out and then I remembered this pain management technique that Dana and I learned in a birthing class. “Slip the silver glove of anesthesia on, feel it run down your arm, through your body.” I thought and thought about that damn glove and then the Percoset started to kick in. I never needed the drugs when I had a meniscus repair, but now they came in handy. After a couple of hours, the pain subsided a little and I realized I was actually having a nice Saturday afternoon. Percoset, couch, movie, can’t do anything except stay put. I thought I could play that up for eight or nine days, but I was up and about with a borrowed medical boot the next day.

So how do you treat broken toes? There’s nothing you can really do. Just elevate and ice. I actually went to the hospital, but thought I’d save a few grand in x-rays and stuff by heading home.

The moral of this story is don’t be a moron and second guess yourself, especially not twice like I did. I should’ve worn the Red Wings, and I should have moved the paver away from the rear hatch. Ah whatever, now you can watch the result of my stupidity.