While reading Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack, I learned that the person who wrote the song “Don’t Know Much” by Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt passed away recently, and it made me realize that THIS was the song that was playing when I shared an intimate moment with my foot doctor!
First, I’ve been a big fan of Kareem’s writing for years, and his Substack was the first one I ever subscribed to. He’s smart, insightful and funny, and he shares his opinions on vast array of topics from politics to Vanderpump Rules. Yes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has thoughts on Scandoval.
For years I couldn’t remember what song was playing during the special moment at my podiatrist’s office. The only thing I knew for sure is that it was a duet. Was it “Endless Love”? “Separate Lives”? “Never Gonna Let You Go”? For some reason I convinced myself it was “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love for You,” but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t.
So here’s what happened. I have a history of buying bad beds. In fact, I’m waiting for a new one right now because I hate my current one.
I think the reason I always pick lemons is because I buy beds that are perfect for my dog, not for me. They need to be low enough so Mary can get up and down by herself (and Beverly before her), otherwise she barks at me all night and I can’t get a good night’s sleep. Yes, we’ve tried stairs but she’d rather annoy me than use them. My whole life is run by a 6-pound dog.
This means I always end up with a platform bed, and a lot of platform beds are rickety. The bed I have now is the Floyd platform bed, which is stylistically lovely, but otherwise a mess. (It shifts constantly and the headboard is flimsy. Don’t get it.) The one I had in Brooklyn — which is the reason I ended up at the podiatrist’s office — was an early Blu Dot one with a metal frame.
It was 2009 or so and I was sick of sleeping on the floor and wanted to be higher, so I came up with the bright idea to put the bed on bricks. The legs were metal, so small metal pointed legs were on top of bricks on top of a wood floor — and the whole thing was just a bad idea. I searched my pics and actually found a photo of it.
After a night of intense scratching noises and wobbling, I decided to put my bed back on the floor, so I started moving the bricks one by one — and accidentally dropped one on my toe in the process.
Now, I’m not sure if you’ve picked up an actual brick but they’re fucking heavy, like deceivingly heavy. You think no way could a brick be that heavy, but they are. (Okay, I just Googled it and a brick weighs around five pounds which doesn’t sound like a lot. But they’re made of concrete and clay, and when you drop one on your toe, IT HURTS.)
I start crying, of course, because my toe was throbbing, and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, and I hadn’t yet had coffee or even changed out of my pajamas. But luckily there was a podiatrist’s office across the street from where I lived (which I had been to before), so I called them up and told them my story. They said they were booked, but if I came right now, the doctor could see me before he started his day. I grabbed my keys and hobbled out the door. I didn’t even change out of my pajamas.
After limping my way down three flights of stairs and across a busy Brooklyn street, I arrived and was led to a small exam room in the back that was dark, quiet and sheltered from the loud street noise.
As I laid down on the exam table and waited for the doctor, I started to calm down. Easy listening was coming out of a speaker on the ceiling and it almost put me back to sleep. Then the doctor came in.
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