It's Hard Out Here When You Limp

In (the outer limits of) Backroads, nobody can hear you scream (at Hick).

I was in the kitchen making supper last week when my right hip was virtually wrenched from its socket. One minute I was cutting up some Romaine at the counter, turned to grab a tomato, and COULDN'T! My right foot was stuck to the floor!

Let the record show that I rarely wear shoes in the house, the exception being my Crocs on occasion, which are indoor shoes. Mainly I putter around in my black Doc Ortho crew socks, or in the morning before dressing for town, bare feet.

I'd had no problems at the counter that morning. Nothing grasping my sole like flypaper on steroids. I'd written out two checks while standing there, sent texts to The Pony and my sister the ex-mayor's wife, and sealed and stamped letters for the boys. No issues whatsoever. That floor was as clean as the day the linoleum was put down. HA HA HA! Sorry! I just about gave myself a hernia laughing. The floor was as clean as it normally is, heh, heh. You could eat off it...there's enough crumbs to sustain you for a week! My point is: the floor was NOT sticky when I left for town.

In the ensuing 90 minutes, before I returned, Hick had come back from the BARn, and prepared himself a lunch of two leftover BBQ hot dogs. I smelled a rat. Make that a BBQ hot dog.

"I can't even WALK in here! There's something sticky on the floor! I'm pretty sure you dropped a BBQ hot dog, and went through the motions of cleaning it up!"

"No. I didn't drop a hot dog."

"Suuure. You SAY. I can tell! By the way it holds my sock to the floor, before I can wrench my foot free."

"I didn't drop a hot dog, Val."

"Will you lick the bottom of my sock, and tell me what it tastes like?"

"No."

"This is miserable! I walked all over this kitchen today, without a problem."

"Well, I DID eat them for lunch. And you were in there when you came home, without an issue."

"I still had my shoes on when I got back, while standing there getting my lunch ready."

"If I'd done it, which I didn't, you would have noticed it then."

"Maybe, if I walk into the living room, your dirt and gravel and cedar shavings will stick to it, and allow me to walk freely again. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to make it down the stairs like this. My right foot will hold me back. At least I won't have to worry about falling! I'll be suspended until I'm freed..."

"I wish you could hear yourself."

"I wish YOU could hear me!"

The issue was still unresolved when I went downstairs, prying my right foot loose on each of the 13 steps. I put on my old walking shoes down there. When I took them off upon settling into my OPC (Old People Chair), I had to pry my foot out of the shoe. This was getting ridiculous. Surely whatever was on there (leftover BBQ hot dog juice) would have dissipated by now.

I turned my foot sideways. Huh. That didn't look like leftover BBQ hot dog juice. It was white. Whitish gray. I reached with the intent of picking the blob loose with my fingernail. Nope! The Blob had other intentions. I picked and picked, until I got a smidgen of it loose.

That looked like (and felt like) STICKY TACK! The stuff used to hang posters on walls! The rest wouldn't come loose. It remained sticky, but allowed me to walk without as much hold-up to lifting my foot.

Attempts to wash it off my finger were not quite successful. Soap and water did not remove the whiteness that remained in my fingerprint whorls. It was like paint or putty. None of which I have in my kitchen.

I interrogated Hick the next day, but he had nothing to do with it. That was his story, and he was stickin' to it like some white putty substance on my Doc Ortho sock!

Funny how Hick had spent all morning in the BARn, repairing fishing plugs. According to him, all he did was clean them with baby wipes and put screws in them. He DID concede that maybe he had picked up something off the BARn floor that had been there a while. Caulk, perhaps.

He refused to let me inspect the soles of his boots.