My Right Foot Vendetta

I think I might have a secret vendetta against my own right foot. More specifically, against the toes on my right foot.

 

I know – weird, right?

 

But let me explain.

 

The other night I was trying to squeeze a newly purchased industrial size bottle of extra-virgin olive oil into my already overflowing pantry. It was on sale and these days I can use all the sale prices I can get.

 

There really wasn’t any room in the pantry, so when I maneuvered the olive oil container onto the shelf, a large can of tuna fish popped off the shelf and fell onto the floor. But to cushion the blow, it first landed directly on the fourth toe of my right foot before bouncing off and settling on the floor.

 

Lucky for the can of tuna fish; not-so-lucky for my foot. There’s a nice big purple bruise adorning that fourth toe. But at least I still have decently polished toenails thanks to my cousin Cathy who treated us to pedicures when I went “up north” in Michigan a few weeks ago.

 

But back to the pantry problem. When I moved in here last December and my friends and I opened the mountain of boxes that were stacked chest-high in the kitchen, we just shoved things in the pantry for temporary storage to “deal with” later.

 

I’m ashamed to say that “later” hasn’t yet happened.

 

And now it’s so overwhelming, I barely look whenever I take something out or put something in.

 

And this is a BIG pantry, folks. I mean, I can walk in and turn left or right.

 

Well, right now I can’t. The floor is warehousing all sorts of things that I’m hoping I can get to one of these days. Including storage bins and canisters to corral some of the very items I want to store properly in the pantry.

 

Everything is all piled in there willy-nilly without any thought to organization.

 

What I need to do is spend a day (at least) pulling everything out of the pantry and then starting from scratch. Clearly, I need to allow more storage space for things like bottles of olive oil and cans of tuna.

 

And, no, I’m not going to show you a picture of my pantry in its current state. Maybe once I get to organizing it, I’ll be brave enough to show a “before” photo – as long as I have an “after” photo for contrast.

 

So, anyway, back to this vendetta against my right foot.

 

It’s not the first time I’ve injured myself, thus, I'm labeling it a vendetta.

 

The last time was just a few short years ago when Vince and I were hosting a family gathering for Father’s Day. I even wrote about it here. I was lugging an armful of party items to the lower level and Vince asked me to bring a plate of frozen steaks to thaw in the downstairs fridge. I told him I was full up and couldn’t carry anything else on that trip – but he thought I could handle one little plate of frozen steaks.

 

Yeah…not so much.

 

As I started walking on the ceramic tile floor hallway toward the stairs to the lower level, the plate of frozen steaks slid off whatever it was stacked on and fell lip-first onto the second toe of my right foot.

 

The good news? The plate didn’t break. The bad news? My toe broke. I had a good-sized cut on that toe that took weeks to heal, and the toenail is permanently split and damaged. (So pedicures aren’t nearly as fun as they used to be.)

 

But at least Vince felt badly enough about it that I didn’t have to do much to get ready for that party – and he even took a few extra dog-walking shifts so I didn't have to hobble around while sporting that big white bandage.

 

I’m not sure it was an even trade, but whatever.

 

The final incident that I’ll discuss to further prove my vendetta took place the day before my wedding in September of 2009.

 

I was packing to head down to the hotel and was filling bags and suitcases with all the “stuff” I needed (and stuff I didn’t really need but wanted to have “just in case”).

 

I picked up my 4-inch Wedding Planning binder to put it in a carrying case all its own since it was so thick and heavy. It was a “just in case” thing because if I didn’t have everything planned by that point, it wasn’t going to get done.

 

Possibly I was thinking it had all the vendor phone numbers in case the caterer forgot which entrée they were serving – or the DJ forgot which song I wanted him to play for the father and daughter dance.

 

But at any rate, I dropped the 4-inch binder onto the floor. Nope, not on my foot. And at that moment, I thought to myself, Whew, was that lucky – or what?!

 

And then when I bent down to pick it up, I somehow took a step and kicked the thing – and felt a pain like you can’t imagine. A 4-inch wedding planning binder is NOT something one wants to kick the day before one’s wedding.

 

Fortunately, this injury didn’t preclude me from wearing my wedding shoes and I didn’t even limp walking down the aisle. So major crisis averted. The purple bruise I sported on (again, the second toe of my right foot), at least matched my wedding accent colors of red and purple.

 

I wanted to find a better photo of the wedding day "ouchy" - but I didn't have any luck searching through Facebook. So I thought perhaps I'd posted a blog about it. I couldn't find it, but imagine my surprise when I found yet another picture of a stubbed toe. (Here) And it was my third toe. So if I find a picture of my big toe and baby toe with bruises on them, I'd have a full house of injuries to that foot!

So maybe I don’t have a vendetta against my foot so much as I have a vendetta against my toes?

 

Either way, I need to be more careful against flying cans of tuna fish or frozen steaks or wedding planning binders.

 

Well, I’d better run. It’s time for me to change the sheets on the bed. That’s usually a good opportunity to stub my toe on the frame.

 

Hmmm. Perhaps I should invest in a pair of steel-toed boots?

 

 

The Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2022

Last week I cruised over to Costco to fill up my gas tank. I’ve been filling it back up once the gauge hits the halfway mark in an effort to fool myself into believing that gas is not as expensive as it really is.

 

Yeah, like that works.

 

Nevertheless, it has been my practice in recent months and it’s hard to change.

 

While there, I decided I simply had to purchase a 10-pound bag of Buttermilk Pancake mix along with the requisite gallon jug of maple syrup. You never know when a phalanx of pancake-hungry breakfast eaters is going to descend upon my little abode expecting a stack of flapjacks. And I wanted to be prepared.

 

And, okay, so that’s not really true. Most of the hungry breakfast-eaters I know are going to studiously avoid my place as they know I won’t have the provisions to feed them. And even if I did, the pancakes would either turn out burned or undercooked. Bleh.

 

Oh well. I’ve never professed to being a cook. If ever I invite anyone over for a meal, they’re probably going to be fed a salad. (But, hey, they’re pretty good salads, if I do say so myself.)

 

Anyway, as I walked into the Warehouse, I noticed a long line of folks waiting for Customer Service. Normally, I mind my own business and try not to be a looky-loo, but I have to admit I was a little curious. After a quick peek at what these folks were holding in their arms, I saw an awful lot of jars of peanut butter.

 

And then I remembered seeing something about salmonella and a peanut butter recall.

 

And then I remembered that I had actually purchased a two-pack of Jif from Costco in recent months.

 

And THEN I remembered having a stomach ache a couple weeks ago, which was memorable only because I rarely have stomach aches.

 

I had eaten a spoonful of peanut butter that I had just opened, so – yeah – the wheels were turning.

 

Once I returned home I looked up the lot codes of the jars in question – and, sure enough, the two jars in my pantry were affected. (See photo below for Lot #'s affected.)

 

Great. I pretty much automatically toss my receipts once I get home from a store, so I knew I didn’t have proof of purchase.

 

Since there are no toddlers in my home and my small dog doesn’t scarf up a whole lot of peanut butter, I don’t go through a jar quickly. Consequently, I may buy a jar of peanut butter once every year or two – so it was a little painful tossing a large unopened jar and a second jar that had literally one spoonful out of it.

 

On the other hand, I wasn’t even remotely interested in seeing how badly salmonella would affect me – and I didn’t relish the idea of ending up in the nearest Emergency Room.

 

So out they went.

 

And then later someone told me that Costco would have allowed me to return them for refund even without a receipt.

 

Oh well. Live and learn.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve heard that some of my friends also had salmonella-infused jars of Jif in their cupboards that had to be tossed. One friend had even made a peanut butter pie before learning that the peanut butter was bad. Sad.

 

But I suppose that’s better than eating a delicious peanut butter pie that makes you sick.

 

Strangely, over the past few days I’ve been craving a slice of peanut butter toast. Power of suggestion, perhaps?

 

So maybe I’ll have to make another trip to the grocery store and try again.

 

But maybe I’ll go with a jar of Skippy this time…