Broke Your Foot Day!
You're on crutches and you live on the top floor a five-floor walkup in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It takes you sixteen minutes to climb those stairs. When you open your apartment door, your roommate turns around with the knob that turns on the microwave in her hand.
"This is broken," she says.
She tosses the knob in the trash can and goes into her bedroom to speak to her boyfriend in Polish. You stare at the trash can, then at the freezer. You want to lie down and never get up again, but you need Vodka first. You postpone stretching out on your futon long enough to cut a lime and halfway fill a glass with ice cubes and some tonic. You fill the rest of the glass with vodka. You take both crutches in your right hand, the glass in your left, and you hop into your room, where you fall on your futon without spilling a drop.
After two more journeys into the kitchen for refills, you're nearly blind, and your mother calls you. She asks about your foot and you try to keep your words from crowding each other, but you realize you're going to have to throw up within a minute's time. You do your best to pull yourself to your crutches while scuttling the conversation to a conclusion. But you fall and drop the phone on the floor.
"Hello," she says when you get the phone to your ear.
"My roommate wants the phone," you say.
"Oh," your mother says. "Okay honey well then…"
"Love you Mom," you say and hang up. You're back up on the crutches flinging yourself to the bathroom. The laws of physics get you to the toilet. It all works out.
Several hours later, you realize your roommate must have left before you threw up, because you find yourself sprawled across the kitchen floor with your feet across the threshold to the bathroom and your head in the kitty litter. You pull yourself up, reach into the bathroom, and tug the knob on the toilet to flush your vomit down the drain. The knob, of course, comes off in your hand. You toss it into the garbage and crawl back to your bedroom for some more sleep.
Happy Broke Your Foot Day!
