I paused, mid-swallow, and thought to myself, “No, surely root beer cannot attack as well. Was shattering my illusions that I might safely one day snuggle with the cutest Zoro-masked furballs in the rodent kingdom not enough for you, God?! Must you now taint my favorite non-Mr. Pibb soft drink with images of death, too?”

I considered the caps lock warning, hoping the only reason my root beer bore a disclaimer was because some overzealous fetus-loving organization had won a lawsuit against pregnant caffeine addicts, but then I remembered…A&W isn’t caffeinated. 

At this point I decided I might as well see what new phobia I could add to my list of Things That Make Me a Pussy and was confronted with the single most horrifying tidbit of information I could have read: 

CAP MAY BLOW OFF CAUSING EYE OR SERIOUS OTHER INJURY. POINT AWAY FROM FACE AND PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY WHILE OPENING.

Fine, I thought, I’ll point it away from my face while opening next time, unless I’m wearing my onion goggles, but how in the hell am I supposed to point it away from my face while I’m chugging out of it?

This was only the first of many disheartening contemplations the admonition evoked. Not only was I disturbed that even root beer could force me to relive my formative days as the only girl on my preschool campus sporting an eye patch, but I was troubled by the fact that, apparently, my mother has a secret second job in copywriting for A&W.

Now every time I see someone selecting a soda in a vending machine, I’m going to feel the need to scream, “Stop! You could put my eye out with that thing.” And I was just celebrating the fact that no one had hit me in the eye with a champagne cork over the holidays. I’m so glad my embarrassing urge to duck and cover my face every time someone mentions they’re thirsty is going to last year-round.

Thanks a lot, Authority of Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. Don’t be surprised if you get an irate call on your 866 number when my Damnbien kicks in in another six to nine minutes. We’ll see who needs a warning then. Oh, we’ll see indeed.

In any case, I am the kind of person for whom expressions like ‘be careful what you wish for’ were invented. I am prone to fits of jealous rage when passed by the elderly and paraplegics in their nifty motorized Rascal carts. I have spent hours of my life consumed by the late night wheel chair infomercials, my jaw agape as I imagine whizzing from the parking lot of the gym right up to the elliptical machine inside where I would reluctantly disembark. I often ask to be carried and at five-foot-ten I am more often than not refused piggyback rides by my friends and family. If ever science were to make it possible to have someone go pee for me, I would happily oblige. Hey you, I’ll pay you two bucks to come take my bladder, wring it out in the toilet, and bring it back to me. These are the kinds of day dreams that bring a smile to my face as I procrastinate at getting up to urinate. My best friend Cindy still teases about a drunken night when I allegedly asked if she would carry my vocal chords. My ill-fated pleas to get my husband to bathe me are always met with laughter and my shocked confusion.

So you can only imagine how karma repaid me last week. I was taking a nice two hour lunch break with my coworkers at the local Chili’s when the urge to pee suddenly struck. Always the consummate professional, I decided to take care of business myself. We had just paid the bill and everyone went outside to wait and smoke while I entered the craftily decorated bathroom to have a near-death experience. I approached the handicapped stall simply because it was closest to me, and as we’ve established, I don’t like to move more than is necessary. I slowly opened the heavy double-wide door causing an ominous creaking sound to echo off of the gadget-adorned walls. Suddenly the whole four-hundred pound door broke off its hinges and crashed down onto my foot before I could jump back out of the way. It bounced first on the center of my sandaled left foot than smashed down again across my toes before crashing into a metal trashcan which then knocked over and rolled loudly across the tiled floor. I immediately feared my Rascal wishes and spoon-fed applesauce dreams were about to come true, only there would be no elliptical work out in this new reality. I stood stunned for a few seconds, surveying the damage I had just created and pondered what to do. My foot was throbbing and a little bit of blood was squeezing out from my big toe’s cuticle. The whole foot was a remarkable shade of crimson and I was quite sure, at that moment, that I had never felt so much pain in the long quarter century that constituted my life. I gimped out to the cash register and asked a waiter if I might have a quick word with the manager. Ten minutes later a nervous middle-aged gentleman who had clearly sampled quite a few fried onions in his tenure, looked from my pained expression to my now purple foot.

“Yeah, um, your whole bathroom stall door just came down on my foot.”

“No way! Dude!” came the waiters’ replies.

They sprinted to the bathroom and once they saw my karmic mess, emitted strings of surprised profanities that were rather inappropriate given the family-friendly atmosphere and abundance of small children and their now-angry mothers within earshot.

“Wait here,” the manager ordered. He came back out with a camera and instructed me to take off my flip flop. “Just in case,” he said.

A small circle was now gathering around to watch the foot fetish photo shoot of the year. I posed my rapidly bruising foot this way and that wondering what kind of sick website the pictures would end up on in the future.

The manager slipped me an envelope and in the hushed whisper of John Gotti handing a judge a bribe, instructed me to open the envelope later. The intensity with which he reluctantly let go of the envelope, coupled with his dramatic secrecy, led me to believe he was handing over some sort of free-food-for-life Chili’s credit card. I was suddenly feeling pretty good about hobbling back into work with a crunching bag of melting ice taped to my swollen foot. Hell, I’d give up a toe or two for a lifetime supply of those delicious swirl margaritas.

I was pretty damn pissed off when we all piled back into the car and I opened the envelope to find four measly $5 Chili’s gift certificates. Having been raised in a strict hypochondriac background that spans generations before me, I was still convinced that my foot was not only broken but rapidly becoming infected and on its way to needing amputation for gangrene. Here I was about to be unilegged and all I was going to get for such an unthinkable fate was $20! They hadn’t even comped my meal. It was practically a wash given my poor math skills in divying up the check and the copay I would obviously have to shell out at Urgent Care as soon as possible. Damn it, man, I thought. My eyes stung and I blinked back tears. And then the questions came: How had this happened, Lord? Sweet Jesus, why me? Why me?