Being drunk and the damage it can do

I went dancing again! And although my back is tip-top, other parts… aren’t. Allow me to explain.

In the salsa clubs, as the weather outside has gotten nicer and nicer, I couldn’t help but realize that more and more ladies were wearing skirts and dresses instead of pants. I wanted to be one of those girls. But I didn’t have the right shoes.

So, naturally, I went shoe shopping for skirt shoes and boy, did I find them! They’re pretty and comfy, which, in my experience, is an rare combination when looking for heeled shoes. Needless to say, I was rather excited about testing out the bad boys and getting them on the dance floor.

I had my opportunity a couple weeks ago. I was all gussied up for a wedding, skirt and all, and decided to hit the salsa club. It was getting late and I was pretty tired, but thought all that would change (except for the late part, I guess) once I got my blood pumping.

I walked into the club and it was dead. There were about seven guys and I was one of two girls. The bonus of being one of two girls is that you will dance the entire time. The downside of being one of two girls is that the seven guys have resorted to drinking heavily because there was nothing else to do. Can you blame them?

Within minutes of walking in the door I got asked to dance. Within minutes of dancing, Drunkie stepped on my toes (literally). Open toed shoes + drunk guy shoes = pain. I sucked it up and continued dancing, but my toe was very sore. A quick trip to the bathroom revealed a small crack in my toe nail and a fair amount of blood. I cleaned it up, put on my brave face and went back in.

I was a bit gun shy after that. Dancing somewhat awkwardly just to keep my damaged foot out of the line of fire.

As in most cases, when things are going well, you forget why you’re being paranoid, you grow complacent and let your guard down. Which is exactly what I did. Drunkie stepped on my toes again. The same toe. It hurt like a bitch. My reaction was to stop dancing and immediately take the weight off my foot.

I may have stood in the middle of the dance floor looking like a flamingo. Drunkie apologized, and then tried to keep dancing with me. I don’t think he understood that when one foot is in the air, the dance is over. I hobbled over to my table and sat down. He left me alone for about two minutes before coming back and trying to get me to dance with him again. I pointed at my toe and shook my head.

Once I could bear weight on my foot again, I gathered up my jackets and moved it to the exits. I guess it was closing time. The walk to my car was an interesting combination of trying to maintain a normal gait without crying or passing out.

When I got to my car, I inspected my toe. The small crack in the nail had grown. The entire top half of my nail was broken and holding on by a thread. When I got home, I soaked my foot to clean away most of the blood before going to work on removing the remnants of my nail.

Also, I’d just had a pedicure done 3 weeks earlier, so that was pretty much ruined.

Right: before; left: after

I’m not sure if open-toed dancing shoes are my friends.