Matthew Osborne
It’s been 19 years, but I still feel the effects every time I put my shoes on.
We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but we settled in St. Petersburg, Fla., for most of my school years. I started mowing the lawn before I was 10, but our yard was not all that large, so it was pretty easy.
When we first moved to the mountains in Robbinsville, N.C., in 2003, we had a much larger yard to manage, but hey, at least it wasn’t as hot.
But I neglected to realize one thing the mountains have that Florida does not – yellow jackets.
Those yellow jackets live in the ground and I had no idea about any of this. It was not in the handbook entitled “So You’ve Moved to the Mountains,” by L. Ron Hubbard. No, wait, I think it was John Denver. Whoever it was, they didn’t tell me about the yellow jackets.
Side note before I continue, my mother is deathly allergic to bees, wasps and especially horseflies. I had honestly never been stung by any of these at this point in my life, so I was not sure if it was passed down a generation or not.
Back to my lawn. I was mowing one day on a pretty steep hill when I stopped my gas mower to wipe my brow. I then moved on shortly afterward, not realizing that I parked my mower right over top of a jacket nest.
As one would expect, they did not take kindly to this unwarranted disruption of their lives. They reacted with fury, as boxing announcer Jim Lampley would say, and I started feeling dozens of needle pricks in my right foot.
I did not know what to make of it right away until I realized what was happening. (Also, still playing by Florida rules, I was mowing the lawn in shorts.)
The buzzing armada had free rein to sting the living daylights out of my foot, and it was the most offensive any group of yellow jackets had been since 1990. (Ha, right? Come on Bulldogs, high five!)
When it was over, I was more stunned than anything. But then the swelling started. My right foot started to look like that dude in Big Trouble in Little China who blew up like a balloon. By the time I reached the doctor, my right foot was twice the size of my left and I could barely walk.
They gave me some antibiotics and put me out of any danger of a violent, life-threatening reaction, but there was still the problem of this giant foot.
And wouldn’t you know it? The next day, then-NASCAR star Robby Gordon was delivering meals on wheels in our town in his race car. This is about as big an event as Robbinsville gets, and I had to follow Robby through town on his route.
When I interviewed him at the third stop, I apologized for not getting to him sooner, explaining that I was having trouble getting around. He looked down at my foot and gasped mid-sentence at the grotesquerie. It was quite a fun day.
Things started to improve later that night as I worked on the paper at The Graham Star, but it was a while before I could get my foot into any kind of shoe.
How does this relate to today? Glad you asked. You see, my right foot never actually returned to the same size as my left, so finding shoes that are comfortable for both is a nearly impossible task.
I ordered some new dress shoes from Belk, and while I think I have broken them in, my right foot just doesn’t feel right. It probably never will.
One night in Walmart a few years ago, I saw a clerk mark a pair of sneakers on clearance that I kind of liked.
“Whoa,” he warned me. “Those are mismatched. One is an 11 1/2 and the other is a 12.”
Sir, I believe we were destined to meet. If only shoe shopping were that easy all the time.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.