So many of you have thought to pass this along this morning that it is clearly the kind of event the entire community wishes to gather itself around. Who am I to say no? Here ya go: "A Michigan man's life was saved after his terrier bit off his big toe, alerting him to the seriousness of an infection while he was passed out drunk, according to The Grand Rapids Press."
What do you think? Has your terrier ever eaten your big toe while you've been unconscious due to inebriation, making you aware of a pressing medical condition? Tell us in the comments!
As long as there are no follow-up questions: Yes. This has happened to me.
Ok.. it seems that Balk has chilled out a bit since this morning.
If your cockatiel is bobbing its head madly up and down it means that your blood pressure is high and about to get higher when you find out your wife's blowing the FedEx guy.
Unless, as in my case, your cockatiel is suffering from egg binding and just dies, in which case it is merely a false alarm.
I am sorry to hear of your loss. You could drown your sorrows in servicing the FedEx guy.
It's okay--it was a long time ago, and wasn't nearly as traumatizing as when Cody, Goldie's brother, flew into the frying pan when my mom was making (poignantly) wings. He survived, and probably caused my parents to take on a second mortgage, but traumatizing. (And then my eight year-old brother left the back door open and he flew away).
Still, I have new sorrows, so I am going to take a close look at the FedEx guy this afternoon.
This made me think about the old Seinfeld bit about parakeets flying into mirrors: Even if they think it's another room, why don't they try to avoid the other bird?
Who among us hasn't had this happen to us:
"Jerry had had all these Margaritas, so I just let him sleep," said his wife, Rosee, a registered nurse. "But then I heard these screams coming from the bedroom, and he was yelling, 'My toe's gone, my toe's gone!'"
If his wife is a registered nurse, why didn't she sense his diabetes and bite the toe herself? In her case R.N. stands for "really negligent".
He was hiding his toe!!
The Rockford man's strange odyssey began several months ago when he started picking at what he thought was a small sliver on the bottom of his toe. He used a knife to cut skin away from the affected area, but it worsened, swelling so much he had to eschew shoes and resort to loose-fitting sandals.
"I was hiding it from people, Rosee included," said Douthett, 48, who is a musician and a well-known wheeler-dealer in Rockford, where he was born and raised.
"It smelled, and I look back now and realize every time we'd visit someone with a dog, their dog would be sniffing all over my foot."
Things escalated several weeks ago. "One day I was lying down working on a car and Rosee saw my foot, and she looked as though she'd seen a ghost," he said. "We've got to go to the hospital," he remembers her insisting.
God I HATE FEET and so this story is simultaneously trainwreck-level fascinating and making me want to puke.
Must be a CLOSE marriage if the wife doesn't get close enough to his toe to smell it festering like all get out. But if he was wearing sandals, how did she still not see it?! So many questions!
I just so happen to be eating a bowl of oatmeal. Correction, I was eating a bowl of oatmeal.
@scroll_lock: I just KNEW all those socks-and-Birks-wearers were hiding something. And by "something" I mean "weed and hippie lice," but now I include foot disease on that list.
Stupid Rockford, MI, always making other Rockfords look bad.
@Gef: I had an older relative in my family who dealt with bunions by cutting a slit in the side of their shoes to allow it breathing room.
ewww.
@Art: blocked here, and I think that's probably a good thing.
-you're right!-
*sorry I always forget you haz no tubez in your internets, Scrolly. :(
@art: It's the IT menace here... but I appreciate the thought!
mmm. It's the old penis-gets-bitten-off/dog-runs-off-with-it trick that's only been in about 283452432345 movies since 195orever.
#go easy on the Zevons
Great. Now the line "And I've got a peaceful, easy Zevon" will be running through my head all day.
My sense is that the toe terrier will slowly replace the largely outdated rat terrier.
Wow Balk, even your toes are hairy?
Alright now, let's not hairshame our Alex. Also, don't most dudes have furry toes? (Pro tip: DON'T GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH "MALE TOES" ALKSFHLSKHS CANNOT UNSEE, CANNOT UNSEE!!!)
I guess I'm too fat to see my toes. /no I'm not
Lemme nerd this up a bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLDOWH6r1zg
That is interesting!
It's the paws that refreshes.
My shepherd mix gave me a disapproving look once, but that's not really the same thing.
That's not a big toe. It's a shot of Megan Fox's thumb.
Oh, I guess I lost it around 1989. Back then I was young and dumb and spent most of my time high on pot and drunk on Colonel Lee bourbon. Hell, you don't notice the little health issues that creep up on you when you're hungover all the time; one headache blends into another, at least until you get off work and can get back on the bottle. Around then I was working at Bob's Food Service loading fast food dry goods -- paper cups, sporks and whatnot. We'd load them onto trucks that made runs to places like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Po' Folks and Taco Tico -- you know, all the good ones. Anyway, you know how if you get real drunk and pass out on the couch a certain way your arm falls asleep? Well, one night that happened. Like usual, I woke up all hungover and draggy. I didn't even notice anything wrong right away, not until I went to the bathroom and saw blood in the sink. I reached over to turn the faucet on to wash the blood down the drain. Well, the damndest thing happened. Knob wouldn't turn. I was like, what in the hell? And that's when I noticed my thumb was gone. Naturally I thought to myself, Goddamnit! I must have got drunk and chopped off my thumb! I stumbled into the kitchen to get a rag and call Earl but tripped over Flinch and fell face first onto the linoleum. He was just laying there all curled up like, just a happy ol' coonhound. And on the floor right in front of his snout there it was: my thumb. I reckon he chewed it off while I was passed out on the couch. By the time Earl got me to the emergency room it was too late to re-attach it. That was the bad news. The good news is while I was at the hospital doc noticed I had a pretty bad sinus infection. I figure if Flinch hadn't bit my thumb off I'd still be coughing up phlegm. I can't prove it of course, but I think by biting off my thumb, Flinch might have been trying to warn me I had a sinus infection. Yeah, good ol' Flinch. He was a real good dog. A real good dog.
YOU were the guy in Taco Tico that night.
My pet snake alerted me to an iron deficiency during a routine colonoscopy.
Ha!
"But after a heavy night of drinking approximately half a dozen beers and margaritas,"
Heavy?! what?!
I kinda took that to mean "and who the hell knows how many margaritas".