I play soccer.  In fact, I like to think that I play soccer well … or well compared to the other fat, hobbled old men still holding onto the last vestige of their youth.  This was not always the case you know.  I got started playing at a later age than most, combined with the fact that I’m short, slow, and white … the deck was stacked against me.  I can remember my high school coach, a Brit named Mr. Fieldson, once told me that I’d be an exceptional player if I had athletic ability, talent, and composure.

Damn Limeys.

Regardless, soccer, like all sports, has its unique and specific crop of sports injuries that are more common than others.  For instance, you don’t get tennis elbow from playing shuffleboard.  Boxing – brain damage.  Golf – back & knee problems.  Basketball – ankle & back.  Baseball – steroidal shrunken testicles.

With soccer, the tendency is bad knees and broken feet.  Of course, you get your standard soft tissue injuries, such as ligament tears, muscle strains, Colombian sub-machine guns, etc.  I’ve made sure that my knee problems have been well chronicled.  I fear that even referencing them again permanently lowers my PJWS a full tier (Personal John Wayne Score).  Needless to say – broken bones, blood gushers, all the good stuff.

But my latest affliction is perhaps the worst that I’ve had to suffer …

I’ve got one black toenail.

It’s the middle toe on my right foot.  The middle toe – consider it the Up Yours finger of the toes.  If I were arboreal, it’d be the one that I would flash to the other monkeys as I sailed through the treetops from vine to vine.  My black toenail is also on my kicking foot, as well.  I’m not sure if non-soccer people know this, but soccer players have dominant feet just like people are right or left-handed.  I’m a right-footed kicker, which means that my left foot is used for little more than propping me up as I dance on one leg.  I’d get just as much usage if I had a peg leg.

So during one game, someone either stepped on my toe or I kicked the ground.  Yeah, apparently I forget sometimes how long my leg is and I kick the ground accidentally while trying to strike the soccer ball.  Whatever.  Either way, this particular toe has a history of damage.  Not the first time this poor toe has boasted the blackened nail.  And once its damaged, the toenail will follow the same progression each time with much less provocation.  It will immediately darken to jet black and then eventually fall off like a Jeff Goldbloom movie.

Call me Brundle-Fly.

Don’t get me wrong.  The toenail does not hurt, not in the slightest.  The most painful injury that I’ve had was either the torn groin ligament or the bruised ribs.  It’s a toss-up.  Comparatively, my blackened toe nail is a gentle massage by a big breasted Swede.  The problem with having one black toenail is purely aesthetic.

I like to wear Adidas sandals or “slides”.  They are my #1 piece of footwear and I hate wearing socks unless they are bumble-bee striped with shin guards underneath.  This means that wherever I go, I’m flashing my one black toenail – to swim lessons for my kid, the grocery store, on date night with my wife, and more.

Can you say, “Sashay?  Shante, shante, shante, shante!”

When people glance down and see one perfectly black toenail, I know that they automatically think that its a strange fashion statement.  Like the Goths that paint put on one eye of make-up like Alex from A Clockwork Orange, except that I’m so deranged and pretentious, that I decided that a eyeliner nail wasn’t dark enough, not evil enough.  No, I had to color my Up Yours toe.

When I see people with this type of obviously conforming, non-conformist flair, I want to saw at my neck with a rusted lawn mover blade and hydrochloric acid.  It drives me crazy.  I am absolutely the last person to do this type of “look at me” stunt.  Dude, I let my wife cut my hair.  I dress like a New Jersey mobster in track pants and T-shirts.  If I shave twice a week, then its nearly a miracle.  When it comes to self expressionism through nail polish, I’m certainly not your guy.

Here I am though, stuck with my podiatric glamor shot.  And its not just discolored, half bruised.  Nope, its solid black.  I couldn’t have made it more perfectly, uniformly jet black if I had taken a Sharpie to it.

But that brings me to a point.  If I were an inventor, I would create a flesh colored nail polish for men just for this exact circumstance.  It wouldn’t have any gloss or shiny-ness, just a flat average flesh tone.  Perhaps in a range of colors so I can match it to the adjacent toenails just to make sure its as unnoticeable as possible.

Are there other products like this that could have a product life with the right marketing?  Fake eyebrows for the after effects of passing out first with a bunch of assholes?  Sideburn assisters for the less gifted in facial hair growth?

I so hate the idea of having a single black toenail and the social stigma that I can feel it burning into my forehead like the Mark of Cain, that I would actually buy toenail polish and paint that single toe flesh colored just not not have to deal with it.  I know that the toenail will eventually come off and at that point I wouldn’t even care.  I would honestly prefer a shriveled, sunken toenail socket to this beautifully ebon glossy shield adorning my foot.

Anything to be free of the damnable thing.