Before I Got Hitched to Fight...

Before I got hitched to Fight I had such fine hands and feet. There have been moments when a friend would say, “Ugh, I hate feet.  They are so ugly.  But you… you’ve got nice feet”.  On the rare occasions that I would go in for a manicure pedicure the pretty Vietnamese girls would often compliment me. “You hab such lubly hans an feet. Beautif-O nay-O.”  They no longer say these things.  Now they charge me more.

Before I got hitched to fight I paid little attention to these particular extremities.  They did not require much scrutiny.  They were functional and useful.  They did not hurt or whine.  These days the joint of my left big toe wakes me some nights. “Hey!” it says, “I’m injured! Ice me! Tape me! Care for me!”  My right big toe dislocates in high heels. “Hey!” it says, “Let’s not do this girlie thing too often, eh?  You’re killin’ me down here!”  And the calluses?  Well.  They do not need to speak.  They are a statement in and of themselves.

The digits of my hands are in rebellion.  They are making me pay for my love affair with Gi Jiu-Jitsu as if I have wronged them in some way.  Every day they suggest we break up.  They hate me for requiring that they hold on for dear life to lapels and sleeves and pant legs.  They are constantly stiff.  They do not wake up when I wake up.  They prefer to sleep in.  They have become lazy.  I have to nag at them to open and close and I find myself massaging them at various times throughout the day.  So needy.

There is some sort of dislocation and/or fracture at the top joint of my right ring finger. It has been there for a couple of months now.  I did not know it was my ring finger until I told a teammate that since I do not have insurance to see a doctor that perhaps I should just have it cut off.  “No!  That is your ring finger!” he panicked as if I was being serious.  So I responded, “But it would just be the top they would take.  I can still put a ring on it.  I can still get married.” Obviously he did not know that I am off the market; That I got hitched to Fight.