Shuffling Around

The ankle started to feel a lot better over the weekend (imagine that!) so I abandoned the crutches and hobbled around to the best of my ability, trying to both keep myself entertained and to help out (again, to the best of my ability, which ain't all that great under normal circumstances) around the house. That, to my eventual chagrin, included a trip to the grocery store. At the time, though, it seemed a grand idea: co-pilot Egg and I would explore the brand new Giant Eagle store that just opened in the neighborhood of Harbor Freight. Alas, I actually had no need for a tool buy so it was just to be the grocery store, but still, a brand new store.

How'd it turn out? Well, nice store. But there must have been serious demand for a new store at that location because it was packed to the rafters with shoppers. That entailed a lot more walking and swerving because we had to go up and down each aisle, slaloming through the folks standing in thrall of various brightly colored sundries arrayed in orderly rows, quite the opposite of what they were used to seeing at other stores like, say, Wal-Mart. There was also an extended delay at the checkout while the older woman in front of us figured out how to use the credit card slider. Now I grant you that a little homogeneity in the design of these pesky little devices would be a friendly thing to provide for us customers, but still, could this possibly have been the very first time she had used a credit card? If so, I'm honored to have present at such a momentous event. If not, well let's just say that it was a tad frustrating. Still, I must consider that I myself have to often ask the co-pilot how to set things on my cell phone, so it's really only a question of degree - life is confusing for everybody these days. I'm really just saying that the adventure ended up being rather more physically demanding than I had planned on.

The ankle felt fine, though. I was moving around easily and well. Then came Monday morning. It was very tender getting out of bed and was kind of naggy in the morning, so I went most of the day crutchless but curtailed my normal walkabouts at work. Then came Monday afternoon: toes and ankle purple as Liberace's prom dress and throbbing in time with a Sousa march. At this point I started to realize that I had just maybe rushed things a bit over the weekend.

Today was my long-awaited appointment with the therapy place, but that was a bust. They turned me away for want of a prescription form from a doctor. I objected that we had consulted with our insurance carrier twice and been told each time that a prescription was not required for the visit to be covered, but they informed me that it wasn't about insurance, it was about their office policy. Liability or something, I suppose. That's unfortunate, really, because it means another trip to the doctor and another co-pay, just to get right back where I already was. They were very apologetic about it, and asked if there was anything they could do to help. It seemed an honest question, so I gave an honest answer: "Yes, just remember next year when you vote that a vote for Hillary is a vote for more of this exact kind of thing." Well, I may not have said "thing," exactly, but I'm conveniently unclear enough on the memory that I can with good conscience substitute it for whatever descriptive euphemism might have been the actual case. In any event, I said it nicely.

The doc can't see me until Monday. I could have been to Cuba by now.