The Dropsy Returns!

Oh, dear. Of all the times to succumb to The Dropsy, it has to be Thanksgiving food preparation week. Yesterday, I had a relapse, I suppose you might call it. And it carried into TODAY, the day we celebrated Thanksgiving with Genius.

Last night, everything I touched went wrong. Including the touch of the arm of my rolly chair that supports me as I sit in front of New Delly in my dark basement lair. I might have mentioned that my rolly chair is on its last wheels. It is missing the left armrest plastic cover thingy, and has a flat section of connecting metal where that curved plastic armrest used to be. Connecting two rectangular tubey pieces of metal that make up the chair arm. I sat down, and The Dropsy made my thumb wedge itself in one of those rectangular tubey pieces. Once I extracted Thumbkin from the metal (much more unforgiving than Little Jack Horner's Christmas pie), I saw the extent of the injury.

Okay. It's just a tiny flesh wound. Not in need of a tourniquet. Not even in need of a BandAid. But it's in an awkward place. On a digit that's opposable, and required for many tasks. Like pulling up one's pants after a visit to the NASCAR bathroom. Or washing five or six sinks full of dishes during the preparation of Thanksgiving foods.

But that's not all! The Dropsy really took a toll on Mrs. Hillbilly Mom over the past 24 hours! I had washed my favorite old blue sweatshirt, the one I wear daily over my short-sleeve shirts to ward off the chill of the dark basement lair. Washed it to its faded baby-blueness, pulled it over my head, proceeded to sit down at New Delly and mangle my thumb, and add some Great Value Cherry Limeade powder to my 44 oz Diet Coke. The very first ice cube I added sent a splashing spray of pink spots onto the front of my favorite old blue sweatshirt. Fresh out of the dryer! A detailed count revealed 15 separate spots! Back to the old washing machine for that baby!

The worst part of this relapse of The Dropsy occurred only an hour ago. I was standing in the kitchen, wiping off the bottom of a pie pan, when the knife laying in it slipped over the edge. It's the kind of knife The Pony wished he had to cut his Oreo cake. A plain knife with a plain silver handle. Handle-heavy. I've dropped knives before with no negative results. They clatter to the floor, I let an expletive escape, bend over to pick it up, and that's that.

THIS KNIFE STABBED INTO THE LINOLEUM!

Yes. The pointy end embedded itself in the linoleum of the Mansion kitchen floor, at a bit of an angle, perhaps 80 degrees. There it stood, a knife that could have just as easily have pierced my mesh New Balance and lodged in the fleshy part of my great toe, stopped by the bone.

I hope I am healed of The Dropsy overnight. Or I might need to add steel-toed boots to my Santa List.