This all actually started the week of Finals. My toe actually turned into quite the shade of several colors and was twice its size. It was awesome! But not really. I tried everything to get rid of it - it being the infection after trying to get rid of it myself. Epson salt, more personal surgery, bandages, poking a needle into the infection to get out the puss (yeah that was my favorite too), but nothing worked. So, I left it alone to heal on its own till I got home.

It did. But then I got another pain in my toe, the same toe, but on the other side. This time I wasn't fucking around. I went after that sonofabitch armed only with a small pair of toenail clippers and the little hook "thing" that some of them come with. I couldn't find the tweezers, anyway...I dug in there faster than a five year-old looking for the toy in a new box of cereal. What I dug out (about an hour later) was something that defies any length of the imagination.

I could not believe the size of the "nail" I removed from my foot. Imagine, if you will, half the length of your big toenail extending in and down the side of your toe, but a little bit worse. After poking and prodding for most of the hour it took to get the damn thing out, I finally sucked it up and took it like a man. I took the little hook "thing" on the pair of clippers, stuck it under the top of my toenail, and moved it down the side of my toe pulling the entire (in-grown) nail out. But then I had to finish the job. Yeah, finish. I also had to pull out another section of the nail which had grown down the toe towards my foot. The fact that this portion came to a point and looked like a shark's tooth is what probably caused most of the pain.

After the war was over, casualties included a fragmented in-grown toenail which had to be removed in six different pieces because it was so big, a blood soaked battlefield (my good hand towel), half a toenail, and what was supposed to be my toe. Unfortunately when I was done it looked more like roast beef than a toe. I lit a cigar to celebrate my victory.

My only regret is not taking any pictures to share with all of you. I just can't seem to think of any other way to make you realize how huge this thing was. Sure I could have gone to a doctor and gotten it taken care of. But one, my feet are disgusting as it is thanks to drum corps and I wouldn't want anyone to have to touch them (I myself don't particularly enjoy it) and two, this way makes me feel more like a hardass. Typical man fashion, yes. But seriously, if you've got an in-grown toenail, don't be a fucking idiot, go have a doctor take care of it. Man was that stupid.

p.s.
The new Coheed And Cambria CD came out yesterday. Go and get it, and try to enjoy it as much as I am enjoying it right now. Brilliant.

MUSIC: Coheed And Cambria - The Willing Well I: Fuel For The Feeding End