Armed with a Q-tip.

Yesterday one of my coworkers hobbled into the back room and I was curious.  Hairstylists have lots of reasons for hobbling: foot pain, leg pain, back pain, oh, and the dreaded hair splinters.  Did you know that last Saturday I actually pulled four hair splinters out of my right foot?

But she didn’t have any of the above.  “Plantar wart,” she sighed.

Oh, man.  Once upon a time I had a plantar wart. 

It all started at the age of 17.  This curious visitor on my toe just wouldn’t cease to make his presence known.  I had tried declaring war on him on my own, hedging away his filthy black roots.  But if you’ve ever had one you know that the deeper you go the harder the warfare is.  Plantar fights back with pain, so I’d always surrender just shy of victory.

My mom took me to the family doctor.  Sweet man.  Prescription cream written.  Prescription cream purchased.  Prescription cream applied.

And applied.

And applied.

Daggone Plantar just made himself at home.  But I’m easily distracted and awfully patient, so it wasn’t until a couple months later that I realized I’ve been faithfully slathering this cream all over my toe in vain.  There was zero change in the wart department.

And when I say faithfully, I mean shamelessly, publicly, frequently and vocally.  Sure, if my girl friends were spending the night, I’d just whip out the cream and tend to the toe. A toe wart could happen to anyone, right?   I had nothing to hide, right?  I made sure my prescription was never lost, always accessible.  It was about as easy to locate as my bedroom door.
  

So with all of this time passing and zero change, I finally decided to actually look at the prescription and read if there was something I was missing. 

Oh, yes.  There was something I was missing.

I, Suzy, 17 yr. old virgin, Suzy, who had never known a man in the Biblical sense, Suzy, had actually been given a prescription for genital warts.

Did you get that?  Genital warts.

I.  Was.  Horrified.

I resumed warfare on my toe, armed with nail clippers, hydrogen peroxide and a Q-tip.  This time with utter humiliation fueling my courage, I fought my way through the pain and laid Plantar in his grave.

Did I mention that I had used this genital wart cream shamelessly, publicly, frequently and vocally every day?