And now, a moment of shameless gloating

So. A couple weeks ago, my husband broke his toe on our coffee table. We went to the doctor, who took an x-ray and said, “Oh dear, it’s broken”, gave him one of those ‘cast-shoe’ things and said, quote, “Keep it elevated, take these ibuprofen and use ice to keep any swelling down. Come back in two weeks for reevaluation.”

Now. Here is how I interpreted these instructions: Stay on the couch for two weeks, then come back to see me regarding whether or not you’re good to go back to work or whatever fool thing you deem worth doing.

This, however, is what my husband heard: Stay on the couch for precisely fourteen days from today, and then you are free to return to whatever fool thing you feel like doing, including going back to work with the 135 mile roundtrip drive and the stomping eleventy-zillion miles from the parking structure in your dress shoes, across campus, up and down stairs, to your cubicle, bungee jumping, jungle safaris, hey whatever!

When he announced that he was going back to work ‘as usual’ this week, there was a little bit of back and forth about whether or not this was a particularly splendid idea. (‘Back’ and ‘forth’ should be pronounced, ‘It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt at all, and she said I only had to put it up for two weeks AND IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS!’ and ‘ARE YOU NUTS?! Well, fine, but if you RUIN YOUR FOOT and need surgery and pins and stuff, DON’T COME RUNNING TO ME FOR SYMPATHY!’)

He kept insisting she had said he could go back to work as usual after two weeks. I kept insisting that no, she didn’t, she said come back for reevaluation in two weeks.

We finally agreed to differ and dropped the subject. (And secretly called each other twits and reactionaries and all sorts of other disagreeable names in the silence of our minds.) (Also, I spent the entire day yesterday worrying about his @*^&@ foot, because I had horrible visions of all the various ways he could really, really, REALLY hurt himself, rambling around in the cold, cruel wilderness of South San Francisco with a broken toe.) (And how awful it would be if he had to rely on me for pillow-fluffing or beverage-fetching while he healed after surgery, because I am a rotten, absent-minded nurse and he could actually die of thirst waiting for me to remember he needed some water.)

So. We had the follow up appointment today, during which the doctor said, “Ah. OK, um…didn’t I give you a cast shoe to wear? Yeah, see, I expected you to still be wearing it, because {long explanation that boils down to, if you walk on it right now at all but especially in regular street shoes, you will DEFORM YOUR FOOT and require surgery to correct it}.”

The toe is still broken. He still needs to stay on the sofa. And should categorically not be going back to work as usual etc. etc. etc.

Now, I told you that so I could tell you this.

I am never, never-ever, on this side of the argument. I am always the one sitting there looking sheepish while the nice professional informs me that I will now require surgery to have my gabbleflester removed because when he said ‘don’t eat chocolate’, that included Godiva – and no, ‘good chocolate’ was not like ‘good cholesterol’.

And my husband gets to sit there saying, “What did I tell you? I told her that, I said, ‘Honey, the doctor said you shouldn’t eat that, it’s going to wreck your gabbleflester!’, but would you listen to me? Oooooh no…”

So. Not only am I delighted to discover what it feels like to be on this side of the equation…I AM GOING TO SAVOR THIS PATHETIC VICTORY.

Oh yeah. Let it be written in the Annals of Time: On this day in History, I was right and you were wrong, neener neener neener.

…Maturity personified, that's me...