Near the end of the third quarter Eli hit puberty and you could hear his voice crack as he barked out the count, “h-ut, um, hut, HUT!”. It started subtly, but after the Patriots went ahead in the fourth and all seemed lost for New York, you couldn’t help but notice hair starting to sprout out of Eli’s everywhere. After a fourth down conversion, this small victory looked as though it would be even smaller, as Eli was surrounded by three or four Patriots who were sure to bring him down for a crushing loss. But in the same type of moment that mighty Casey struck out, Eli’s balls dropped, breaking free of the Patriots’ claws. With newly acquired adrenaline screaming inside his head “FUCK IT!”, Eli heaved the ball down the field in a motion that deep down was a rebellious catharsis against his father, his older brother, and his High School Social Studies teacher who that week gave him a C- and a stern talking to. The completion gave the Giants a first down and an epic momentum that the NFL Gods would not let turn anticlimactic, as Manning eventually lobbed the winning touchdown to Plaxico Burress, leaving only thirty seconds left on the clock for the Patriots to help the Giants beat the shit out of Tom Brady a few more times.

Now, I watched this…quite nicely…in HD. This perhaps gave me advantages over others. For instance, with this incredibly precise clarity, I was able to actually see Eli Manning’s balls drop, measure the distance of their descent (4”), and count the times they bounced (7) before finally coming to a rest, signifying his true entry into manhood. Unfortunately, the post-game interview exhibited Eli’s amazing ability to retract his balls and reverse his hormones, reverting to “Gee! Aw-Shucks!” etc. God bless him.

Following the game, Rockville Center was a goddamn madhouse. There were upwards of…3 people in the streets. Two newspaper vending machine had been knocked over in the celebration and one of the three in the mob who was drunkenly and angrily marching ahead of his girlfriend beat the hell out of two parking signs as I hoped to hell he was not getting on the train with us. Winning cures all. Or so says a Philadelphia fan.

And then my foot exploded. Well…that’s not exactly the order of events. To be honest, I went home, ravaged by fatigue, and installed an OS on my PC, slept until I woke up, cursed Windows, ate a sandwich, took my desk apart, and called my sister. Isn’t that interesting.

Oh…and then my foot exploded. I had been playing basketball the last few days and either I don’t know how to run properly or my feet were never made for shoes. The result was a horrible blister on my pinky toe…that got worse as I continued to play even though I was no longer effective and there was no enjoyment to be had.

It hurt like hell and that’s expected. I’ve had these blisters before. They hurt…then go away.

But today, with a fresh lovely blister, I was taking apart my desk, littering the apartment with big steel parts. At some point, my foot itched so I took my sock off. I then began once more gleefully prancing around like an idiot as I know no other means of locomotion and swung my pinky toe with all possible force directly into one of these steel litterings.

BAM!

“HOLYMOTHER FUCKINGSHITBALLING CHRISTONAMEAT HOOKIN HELL!” I was heard to exclaim…and repeat again and again to the delight and continued consternation of my neighbors.

Nothing new there. That WOULD hurt, expectedly. However, when I stopped cursing God’s anus long enough check out the situation I was surprised to find that my toe had actually exploded…everywhere. The bone was fine, but everything else was sent packing, blood sprayed everywhere.

I was struck by some initial panic as I dragged myself into the bathroom…leaving a pleasant trail behind. As the panic passed, I took to what would surely be a simple matter of putting a band-aid on it…but a band-aid does not adhere so well to profuse bleeding. So I wiped it clean.

Still bleeding…hard…like torrential rain. There was no other choice at this point than to become a spectator. Grab some popcorn and dig in. It was incredible. I couldn’t help but cheer on the bleeding of my toe. It was a cartoon blood, copious and fluorescent red — which might be an indication of some worse condition, now that I think of it. The entertainment value only started to wane due to a nagging thought in the back of my mind, “Could I bleed to death from my toe? How long would that take?” as the drops dripped away. As the post-game episode would have shown, House should know, but I missed that one.

I eventually fashioned a John McClane special of toilet paper and electrical tape to stop my immediate medical emergencies…so that I might better fight the terrorists…valiantly…and work on a more stable implementation of comments for this fine blog-fish. Both of these things…at the same time…against all odds…but mainly stopping the terrorists.

I’m Thomas K…and I’m not.

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