the things I do to myself

It all began while I was sitting cross-legged on my bed this past Sunday. I was in a leg-scratching mood, so I randomly scratched at my right foot's pinky toe and found a nasty flap of callused skin. Naturally, I began to pick at it... and pick at it...

By the time I finished picking, I had used nail clippers and other instruments to remove every last trace of the offending callus, and my pinky toe was blissfully smooth. Satisfied, I thought nothing more of the matter until Monday.

On Monday, I noticed that my right shoe seemed tighter than usual: the shoe felt as though it were squeezing my pinky toe against its neighboring toe. As the day wore on, the pain worsened, especially during my periodic walks with my coworker, and my mind began riffling through pages of diagnostic possibilities until I finally realized that it all came back to that little self-pedicure session I'd had on Sunday.

Conclusion: the shoe hadn't suddenly shrunk. Instead, my toe's skin had been picked at and abraded to the point where it was gossamer-thin, so the pinky toe had been rubbing against the shoe and sock all day long. By the time I stripped my sock off on Monday evening, I saw the toe's outward-facing side was all red—not bloody, exactly, but very, very raw. On Tuesday morning, I showered, dried, and wrapped my toe in a bandage in the hopes of minimizing friction and reducing pain. I can report that friction was minimized.

So I'm off from creekside walking this week while my toe heals. Am contemplating buying sandals... assuming I can find any in my size in this Lilliputian country. But it's no use resenting Korea for its smallness; I brought this upon myself through my own stupidity.