First, my apologies. I’ve been a bit negligent on responding to comments these last few days. That’s what a 5-day break makes happen. If I’d been home alone, that would be a different story. But I wasn’t, so comment responding and blog reading time was at a minimum. Regardless, today marks the end of this 5-day min-vacation, and I’m going to attempt to catch up throughout the day if possible because once I return to work tomorrow, it’ll be a non-stop deadline fest until the last deadline for projects of February 6.

There’s always reading over lunch, I suppose. Ha, lunch. Like I have ever had time to take that before, and now it really won’t happen.

Okay, short story for today that I was reminded of last night. There needs to be a setup concerning yesterday that leads up to me remembering this story.

We returned from a small party yesterday where a friend of ours went all Polar Bear and jumped into the Chattahoochee River. The water temp was 47 degrees. I’ve done it before in Lake Michigan, and I wasn’t even drunk. Apparently this is going to be an annual thing on New Year’s Day for him. He tried to get me to do it, too, but not this year. Maybe next, but probably not. When we got home, the power browned out and turned off, then right back on, then browned out, then off, then on again, then browned out, then off again.

It stayed off. It took 15 minutes to get through to the power company. My neighbors never made it through to the dispatch. The power company, in their infinite wisdom, had no idea how long it was going to take. What else is new? As darkness was fast approaching and the temperature was dropping rapidly, we called up the neighbors and decided it was time to go out to dinner. During dinner, our neighbor was talking about using some sour apple spray to get their son to stop biting. He thought it was candy.

Shortly before leaving Texas after The Wife finished grad school, we bought our dog. Once in Georgia, we started his training. He was a toe-biter. Meaning, The Wife would get up for work and hop in the shower, and the dog would decide to use his sharp puppy teeth to bite my toes and wake me up. The trainer at PetSmart said we should try the sour apple spray. I put it on my toes, and received a foot bath he loved it so much. We stepped it up by using Tabasco.

It is important to know that after we moved back, it took me 4 months to find a job. While The Wife was at work, I spent most of the day cleaning, cooking, looking for a job, and training the dog. Since his biting had not ceased with the sour apple flavor, I put some Tabasco on my toes. He liked that more than the apple.

Taking a break, I put him in his crate, changed into gym clothes, and went to the workout room at the apartment complex. About 10 minutes into a warm-up ride on the stationary bike, my feet were hurting. I powered through, but after 5 more minutes, I couldn’t handle it. I ran outside, popped off my shoes, and stepped into the complex’s pool.

What did I forget to do before changing to go to the gym?

That’s right, I forgot to wash the Tabasco off my toes. This realization came to me as I stepped into the water and watched two red clouds grow around my feet. My toes were swollen and red for almost two days after that.