Litter

Really, the only reason I wear four-inch heels? It’s the kitty litter. On the floor. All crunchy. You know what I’m talking about, right?

Okay. True story. Once I had this thing on my foot. A mole. It was there for, like, ever. And then something happened to it. Maybe it was all the tanning beds, I don’t know. But the damn thing changed! Grew a face! Okay, I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Look at you. You have your I-don’t-believe-it-face on. I can tell what you’re thinking. But listen. This happened, right?

So the mole. The face. Remember? Well, the thing got bigger. And bigger. Pretty soon I couldn’t wear shoes. I had these Crocs? You know, the plastic shoes with holes? Yeah, I had some. And that was okay for a while. I’d just stay home and pet the cat, anyway. I mean, I had a goddamn FACE on the side of my foot, right? What else could I do?

So I go out to the store once in a while, for onions and sausages and those little ribbon Christmas candies — remember those? And cat food, yeah. And I’d have to wear Crocs and it’s like zero degrees out. Because there’s a goddamn face on my foot.

Got really tired of it. Needed a cat brush, anyway. So I went to the doctor. And he looks at my foot, at the — you know, face — and he says, okay, I can take that off, but you’ll never wear high heels again.

I’m like, really? I have this fucking face on the side of my foot growing out to here and all you can tell me is about my goddamn shoes? Take the fucker off. Right now. I don’t want to see that thing ever again. And he says, fine, but the shoes? And I’m all, fuck the shoes, give me my life back!

So I had the surgery a couple days later. Somebody looked after my cat. I get home, and there’s kitty litter everywhere. Like somebody used one of those things you fertilize the lawn with? Only filled with the fucking kitty litter. And it’s everywhere. In my drawers. In the tub. Even in the goddamn fridge!

I realize I could have hired a housekeeper. Could have called up the guy who fed my cat while I was in the hospital having part of my foot cut off.

But you know what I did?

Got myself a pair of four inch heels. Put them on every day — bandages and all — until I could walk again.

No doctor is going to tell ME what to do.

~~~

This is part of a 30-day foray into the art of ekphrasis, or writing from art. What you read today was 10 minutes of unedited writing from the naked cat woman image you see. Each day I will choose a new image and write for 10 minutes using the image as a starting place. I call the category Phantasm, which according to my dictionary is a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition, or archaic, an illusory likeness of something.