WHAT NOW?
Nine!
Sing to the tune of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya!”
Good-bye toe. You gotta go, me-o-my-oh,
Your gotta go, go away, cause you no good-o-oh,
My toe, it’s been so long you’ve been my eff-of.
For you I sing this song, me-oh-my-oh!
“Nine” is actually an amazing number; one more than eight. One less than ten. It has a Germanic origin. And, it shows up every which way in our contemporary vocab. Baseball team? Nine player; “…the whole nine yards.” “Dressed to the nines…” “… we played nine holes (of golf).” “I was on cloud nine!” And earlier: “…cat-o-nine tails.” Or, “…a stitch in time saves nine.”
When I realized the significance of this number, deeply ingrained in our daily vocab, I began to feel better about my own new number: Nine! Well, you know how we humans are. We have ten little fingers; we have ten little toes. We celebrate that – until we don’t have ten. Or, that is, some of us don’t.
I’m struggling to share my news; struggling to express myself in a way that won’t make you…um, faint.
But, you know, lots of people don’t have all their parts. Looking on the bright side, I’m trying to consider myself a new member of a perfectly fine and exclusive group.
So you could say, that I’ve had an amputation, or a mutilation. Years ago, I might have said that I’ve been “pruned off.” Yeow! I must make a decision: Excised? Truncated? Dismembered? Hewn? Cropped? Excised? Severed?
(I should have sought the counsel of Charles Blow, the giant journalist/columnist who captures more adjectives and adverbs (albeit unkind – if not actually evil – ones) for President Trump than any writer in the country. His vocab is quite inspiring. Mr. Blow, I mean. Not that Mr. T. doesn’t inspire Mr. Blow. Ah. But I digress. Mr. T. is always on my mind.)
Well, the good news is that I shall now wear hot shoes. Sexy heels. Slender boots. Strappy sandals. And all the perfectly fabulous clothes that have languished – languished! – for more than a year, victim of footiness, sworn to lonely sway in my closet, while I’ve been forced into wide sneakers and any other ultra-soft shoe, not any bigger than two sizes too large.
You and I? We can dance. Walk. Run. Hang. You may continue to be my kin, or my friend. You may seek my company, or ask my advice. Just don’t ever ask to see the nine.
You’ve probably thought I have no sense of humor. However, G. in all his/her wisdom has been testing me.
Category: Local News
