It was dark in my house and all I wanted was to take a bath and fall into bed. I’d been working ten and eleven hour days all week out in the hot sun mowing lawns, digging trenches, laying sprinkler pipe and hauling around boulders to help build a creek bed and I was tired. The bathwater was running, and as I prepared to sink into the soothing heat of the water, I noticed that I had run out of soap in my bathroom.

No problem, I thought, I have some soap in my gym bag. The art that I had scattered around my kitchen in preparation for the show at the beginning of the month had been hung in the gallery space, so I had no reason to believe I would trip over anything. I had recently cleaned the house, and, I thought, everything’s in order. I didn’t turn on the light as I walked in my bare feet to retrieve the soap from my gym bag.

You know what’s coming.

There was a pane of glass leaning against the wall under the window near where my gymbag sat. I kicked the edge of the glass with my foot. The glass caught my foot between my baby toe and fourth toe. A sliver of glass about three inches long and an eight of an inch wide broke off and lodged itself between my toes, shaving off part of the top of my fourth toe in the process.

After some prolific and piercing profanity, I limped into the bathroom and turned on the light to survey the damage. I gently pulled the glass splinter from my gushing foot and dug around in my drawer for the cotton balls and peroxide. I turned off the water running in the bath and sat down on the toilet to clean my foot. There were no stray particles of glass hiding amidst the gore that I could see, but the blood wouldn’t stop, so I couldn’t be sure. It hurt. A lot. I decided the best plan would be to go ahead and take my bath, letting the warmth of the water ease out any remaining glass to work its way out. I was careful to keep my feet in one spot, wash myself with a washcloth, and avoid much movement to prevent more cuts from any glass that might fall out of my foot.

The bath seemed to sooth the pain and ease the bloodflow, but when I drained the tub and stood there drying myself, the blood started up again.

I set to work again with the peroxide and tried to get the blood to clot. Knowing my foot would be trapped in a hot workboot all the next day, I wanted to keep the air flowing around it during the night, so I treated it with some Neosporin and went to bed, finally.

Surprisingly, in the morning, there was not a crusty bloodstain on my sheets where my foot came to rest. I arose, limped back into the bathroom and washed the dried blood from my foot before applying bandages and athletic tape, throwing on a sock, and fixing myself breakfast and lunch for the day. No major issues to report during the workday, just minor discomfort.

Last night, I finally put together the profile for the frame, hoping that my little mishap would not mean that I would have to cut another piece of glass. I gingerly picked it up and set it into the frame. HHhmmmmnnn, I dunno, I thought. I couldn’t tell if it was noticeable. I really wanted it not to be, but the more I looked at it, the more I knew that yes, I am going to have to cut another piece of glass. Sure, this one is still usable for a smaller piece of art, but dammit, I hate cutting glass almost as much as I hate cleaning it.

So I’m off to the garage to see if I can find a piece that works. If not, it’s off to Ace to get a piece.