The Results Show

Financial guru Suze Orman was on Oprah recently. One woman in the audience stood up to say that she was at the end of her rope. Her husband had left her because of all their debt, she lost their house and she and her children had been put out on the streets. She was crying.

What did Suze say? Something soothing about how brave she was and that she wasn't a loser and that she could climb out of her debt. After my doctor explained what was wrong, mainly that I needed pins put into my ankle to fuse my foot because all the cartilage had disappeared, I gamely asked: "So it's bad?" I was really hoping that he had caught that episode of Oprah.

"It's bad." He said.

He said it was probably brought on by some sort of trauma. How much trauma does a foot have in the average week? Am I randomly kicking the shit out of trees when I walk around? Dropping bowling balls on it when I go bowling, which is never? Immersing it into a vat of cement and then using a jackhammer to fish it out? What the FUCK?

The recovery is 3 months. On crutches. Or a scooter, the doctor helpfully pointed out. I told him I lived on the second floor of a non-elevator building and how was I going to go up and down the stairs on a scooter and he said I should go up and down on my ass. Well, problem solved then.

Basically I'm going to have to steal a cart from Target and ride it around Los Angeles. Or learn how to walk on my head.

On the drive home I kept telling myself, "Shut up, it's not cancer. Stop crying, it's not life-threatening. Quit your whining, there will be pain pills and a handicapped sign involved."

And I will get to wear my pony skin boots again.

And no, my spectacular shoe collection had nothing to do with the state of my ankle. The state of my bank account, yes.

Thanks to everyone who emailed me and I'm sorry I didn't get back to you. I was literally speechless for about 8 hours after my appointment and if you know me, you realize that's actually one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

End of chat.