The Difference Between Men and Women

On Sunday my wife and I decided to run together, but since we have two young kids she jumped on the treadmill and I went outside in the beautiful sunshine. I got to go outside on account of my awesome Rock-Paper-Scissors (Rochambeau) skills and I'll let you all in on the secret to always winning at RPS. You should always throw the secret 4th option: Fire. (Note: the Fire move is not officially recognized by the World RPS Society.)

When I returned home from my run in the beautiful outdoors I went down into the unfinished basement to check on my wife. She too was done with her run, had taken off her shoes and socks and was walking around the basement picking up toys. I immediately noticed that her foot was bleeding. “Do you realize that you’re bleeding all over the basement floor?” I asked, hoping that she didn’t catch that the concern in my voice was clearly for the basement floor. She stopped and looked at the floor around her. Sure enough there were bloody footprints all around, revealing exactly where she’d been since she took off her shoes and socks. It was almost cartoon-like.

It became even more cartoon-like when she shifted her weight to her bloody right foot and picked up her left foot to look at it. “Uhhhh, I’m pretty sure those are right footprints on the floor Babe,” I said as she stood balanced on her right foot in a puddle of blood. “How much blood did you lose?” I asked, my concern starting to switch away from the unfinished basement floor.

All of a sudden it occurred to us both at the same time that maybe she’d lost her first toenail. “Hey, check your toenails” I said excitedly. We both eagerly looked at her toenails to see if one had come off and even tugged at a few that were caked with blood but alas, no luck. All 5 toenails were securely in place. The only thing we could find was what looked like a very small blister that had rubbed off.

We went back and looked at her shoes and socks and not surprisingly the toe of the right shoe was stained a deep crimson red color. I’m not sure how she missed it when she took her shoes off but somehow she managed it. This is where I guess men and women are different. I saw the blood on the shoe and was overcome with jealousy. I looked down at my nice new white Asics and wished I could see some evidence there that would prove I could run through pain. My wife saw her nice new white Asics stained with blood and was disappointed that they were ruined.

After we had both showered and changed it occurred to me that I needed to post about this and I grabbed my camera to capture what would have surely been a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the bloody shoe. I found the shoe clean and drying in the tub. Ruined! If this would have happened to me there would be multiple pictures accompanying this post. I would have told the story to everyone I met on the trail and it would have been bigger and better every time. “You see that. That’s not Gatorade that I spilled on my foot, that’s blood. My blood. It’s from this one time that I lost a toe, not a toenail, a toe. I guess I was going too fast or something.” Also, I would have definitely written “K ALCS” somewhere on the shoe.