Piano Toes

The other day I stubbed my toe pretty hard, making me limp for a while.

When my son Alexander figured out I was hurt, he rushed to get his Doctor's Kit and give me a thorough examination. I thought it was so cute how he used the little hammer for testing reflexes to whack my foot almost as hard as the original stubbing incident. Then he used the otoscope (the device normally used to examine the ears) to check out my toes, then he gave me a needle in the throbbing toe (of course, pressing the fake plastic needle into my toe and hurting it as much as the reflex test hurt my foot).

I always play along with his routines (noticing his Doctor routine was suspiciously like the Mr. Fix-it routine he more often plays with his tool box -- I'm just glad he didn't have the tool kit out and decide to saw off my toe), so while he was examining me, I tossed out a series of questions and comments from a stereotypical doctor's visit.

"Ouch!" I said when he thrust the plastic needle into my toe. "I thought you were a painless Doctor."

"Nope." He said, then produced a small pretend medicine bottle from his kit. Saying, "Open up," he pretended to pour some into my mouth. Then he said: "Okay, you need to take this medicine ten hundred times tonight and in the morning."

"Thanks, Doctor." I said. "I just have one question. Will I be able to play the piano?" (It was a trick question -- you know, the old chestnut of a joke I was trying to pull. The one where the patient asks the doctor if he'll be able to play the piano when he heals. The doctor says yes, sure and the patient says something along the lines of great, I've always wanted to play the piano or wow, I couldn't play the piano before, you're a great doctor.

Of course, Alexander beat me to the punchline with his own unique response.

He simply looked at me incredulously. "Not with your feet!"

End of conversation. This patient was then sent to bed to rest.