Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

I hurt my foot. I know you care.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

All of the other women in my small church have real and important jobs and so that's how I found my extremely ill-equipped self in the kitchen of our church, very much feeling inept. Though the funeral¹ hadn't been in our church, the meal was.

I am not good with church fellowship dinners and generally, my job of "helping" has consisted of putting out salt and pepper shakers and staying out of the way of all the people who knew what to do. Stepping into the kitchen with all the food -- sandwiches, salad, desserts -- and trying to figure out trays and order and amount and when and where, all without the guidance of the other church women...it was like looking under the hood of a car. I have a general idea. Windshield wiper fluid. Oil. But nothing to do any serious repair on.

I can only thank the one other lady from our church that helped, and Pastor Tony for manning the coffee maker. And the woman who wasn't from our church who was a true God-send and made additional sandwiches and sort of took over. Three and a half hours later, just Pastor Tony and I were left. I was finishing up the vacuuming and putting the last of the freshly washed dishes and utensils away. Dishpan hands were mine, and I had just dropped a heavy table on my foot while moving it back to a Sunday school room. I wasn't exactly wearing protective shoes and so, as I stood there, looking at the cut and ensuing bruise, I just wondered about churches and people and the silliness of most women's shoes.

I also realized I was sweating from the hot dish water and all the vacuuming. Luckily, on my way home, I picked up the mail and found a surprise package. Someone had sent me a finely wrapped straight-from-L.L. Bean blue plush towel. [Read why, here.]

The box, tied with a ribbon, had a card that said: Now you have a nice towel. So stop complaining.

Fine.

I shall use the towel tonight and save it from the gift closet. I will towel off cake crumbs, dried dish soap, and any other remnants of the day. I will gently towel my puffy foot.

I'll stop complaining...about towels. But I might continue to complain about, oh, say, feet and kitchen duties. And cake crumbs and dried dish soap and.....

(Thank you for the towel. I love it.)

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¹ The funeral was for the man I had written a magazine article about last year. You can read the article here. (PDF)

Labels: church life, my life

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1 Comments:

Ooh, ouch. Ouch. Dropping heavy things on feet is one of the most painful things we can do to ourselves.

I've done my share of it. My mom holds the world record for most injuries to the foot. In fact, I've wondered if her toes can think independently and have a mission to incapacitate her.

By girlfriday, at 5/10/07 10:26