A final insult after settling back into Boulder

We are back in Boulder three weeks now and settled in.  The trip home was long, 21 hours, but fortunately uneventful.  There was one event that didn't make the blog.  It took a bit of editing to make it safe for public consumption.  

Until the next adventure.

         --A Romantic Walk in Paris

Some may have noticed I have a habit of taking my shoes off at business meetings, movie theaters, etc.  This isn’t just part of what the MurMonster might describe as my “typical anti-social behavior patterns”.  I am prone to athlete's foot.  I can feel it coming on when I get too warm.  Taking off my shoes has been a nearly socially acceptable solution to my problem.  Even when people are sitting too far away to fully appreciate my feet, I can see by their facial expressions they often don’t approve, but I don’t let it bother me.   If I do get some inflammation between my toes, and I am home, massaging some rubbing alcohol onto them helps clear them up pretty quickly. 

After doing some walking around Paris.  I got that same sensation of "you have a skin condition coming on" but on a new part of my body.  I like to think of myself as an open, creative-problem-solver type of person.  But even I didn't feel like I could get away with taking off my pants as we walked along the Seine river.  I felt helpless like a kid who had his wet underwear and still had a long way to walk home. 

For a while it didn't seem that bad, but, eventually walking became as though I were rubbing sticks to together to light a fire.  I had to start thinking about how many beans were in the soup I had for lunch because the growing possibility of pyroflatulence.  But finally we made it back to the apartment.

As soon as we got back I rushed into the bathroom.  This in itself is not unusual for people our age after a long walk.  What was unusual for the MurMonster was hearing me shrieking like a little girl as I attempted to apply my tried and true foot fungus solution to my new problem. 

What I was learning that moment was that "the cleansing burn of rubbing alcohol affects some parts of the anatomy more intensely than others".  The MurMonster wasn’t learning anything new.  She is very familiar with men doing stupid things.  She burst into the bathroom with a look of concern one might normally reserve for car accident victims, but, her sympathy turned to chuckling as she watched me doing my own version Riverdance next to the porcelain throne. 

Normally, the most cruel thing a woman can do to a man is laugh at him with his manhood in a state of disrobe.  But I was so concerned with getting airflow around my sensitive parts I had to wait to be offended.  Adding insult to injury sometimes a little time as the injured party has to think through whether to continue trying to flush with water, or make a break for the fridge for some milk and give all the folks on the street below a show as well.  Only after such matters have been deliberated can one ponder having one’s masculinity laughed at by one’s paramour and allow a second opportunity for reddening of tissue.    

I did let her help by walking to the pharmacy for me.  I gave her the French word for fungus which unfortunately is the same one they use in restaurants for entrees containing mushrooms. My little moonbeam returned with my cream (so I wouldn't have to rely on rubbing alcohol). 

She described the back and forth she had with the French pharmacist trying to explain what the cream was for.  I will leave the required hand gestures to your imagination.  She was able to communicate that "no, it wasn't really for her it was for her boyfriend."  And so she fortunately returned with something suitable for external use.   

Thanks to my brother Sam for helping to make the above story funny.