Photo by Stephanie Hofschlager, Germany www.djk.de |
As some of you may know, my husband Tom loves games and especially likes to play a good April Fools prank.
I have gotten use to this over the years and every April Fools day I tread very cautiously so that he can’t be successful in fooling me again.
One year recently Tom woke me up at the crack of dawn on April Fools Day and said that his big toe was killing him. He told me that it had started to bother him the day before and was throbbing so horribly throughout the night that he couldn’t sleep.
“Maybe you have an ingrown toe nail honey,” I responded half asleep. “Maybe you should see the doctor today.”
Tom agreed that this was a good idea.
During the day I called his cell phone to check in to see how he was doing and if he had seen the doctor. He didn’t call back. I tried him again awhile later. Still he didn’t call.
At dinnertime I was in the kitchen cooking. The kids were busy making chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Tom was running late but finally we heard him at the back door. He came limping into the kitchen with the look of horrible pain on his face. On his right foot was a white plastic grocery bag. You could see blood on the inside of the bag.
“Oh my god what happened?” I asked very concerned.
“The doctor had to take my whole toenail off,” Tom winced.
“And then he put your foot in a GROCERY BAG ??? I exclaimed. “Is there even a bandaid on your toe?” I asked very concerned.
“No,” said Tom, “It was so late in the day that they were rushing to close the doctor’s office and told me to just put a bandaid on it when I got home.”
“Are you KIDDING ME?” I yelled. “This is HORRIBLE! We are never going back to that doctor again!”
I told him to sit down in the other room and went to get him some aspirin for the pain.
“Let me see your toe,” I said returning with the aspirin.
Tom removed his bloody foot from the bloody bag. I inspected it. “Oh my god-I hate to tell you this- but your toenail is still on there Tom…”
“No it isn’t. You just can’t see under all the blood,” Tom replied.
At this our younger daughter yelled from the kitchen “Nice April Fools joke Dad!!!”
I shot back “ This is serious!!! Dad is in PAIN. This is NOT an April Fools joke!”
At this Tom limped into the kitchen and stuck his foot into the kitchen sink to wash the blood off. Our kids, still skeptical, and horrified by his actions, hastily moved the chocolate chips cookies out of the way that were cooling next to the sink.
At which point Tom started laughing and said “Happy April Fools you guys!”
Realizing that I had been taken ONCE again, I hit Tom over the head with the kitchen towel and very slowly, finally started to laugh.
Tom hadn’t stopped at the doctor on his way home. He had stopped at the local pizzeria and asked for a white plastic grocery bag and several packets of ketchup :-)