Ew, gross!

Warning: if you are easily grossed out, this one may not be for you.

I got a little banged up from softball this year. I think it's a good thing though, because it shows more effort! Mostly I got skinned knees from diving to (sometimes successfully) catch foul balls. But in the last game I also killed a toenail.

A low, fast pitch hit me right on the end of my left big toe. It hurt like the dickens when it happened, and was sore for a day or so. Then it just felt like a lot of pressure underneath the nail, and it started to lift up. I could see a white membrane between the nail and my toe, like a concentrated cobweb.

I have teal polish on my toes and I'm afraid to take it off in case the nail is all dead grayish purple underneath. Zombie toenail!

The front edge and corners of the nail are lifting up. When I touch it I don't feel anything--it's like having a hard plastic toenail.

I talked to a couple of friends (one who plays street hockey, one a former ballerina) and they had both lost plenty of toenails over the years and told me that yes, from the sounds of things my nail will fall off in a couple of weeks. I hope a new nail is mostly grown in first. The thought of having a toe with no nail gives me the creeps.

It's not painful unless I poke or pry at it, but I'm worried about catching it on something or having someone step on my toe in the subway. Or what if I use toenail clippers and the whole thing snaps off? Ew!

I also have a skinned knee from more than two weeks ago. For a long time it didn't scab over, it just wept clear brownish orange fluid--which I eventually realized was the same color as the dirt on the softball field. Now it's partly scabbed over but it still cracks and weeps from time to time. It seems to be steadily getting better though.

It really is fascinating watching things heal. I didn't feel that way when my tattoos were healing, because I was always impatient to see the finished artwork. But I already know what my plain old toe and knee look like, so I have more appreciation for the process.

The pitcher on my team slid into second base and scraped up a huge swath of skin on the side of his calf. He was safe, but I don't think it was worth it. We lost by a lot anyway. A few days after the game he had to be hospitalized because the abrasion had become badly infected. Reportedly, he said it looked like hamburger.

Those softball fields, man. They're just big, dusty petri dishes.

The final grossout: I was shopping for band-aids and saw this in the pharmacy:

If you can't read the small print at the bottom, it says: "Sweat Absorber and Friction Fighter".

Ew, gross!