A sharp pain flew through my toe., or at

A sharp pain flew through my toe., or at least where my toe used to be. It has been 10 years since I lost it and still can't believe it happened . My mother would laugh if she knew

that it got sliced off by a windmill blade on a putt-putt golf course. But I was so proud of my missing toe that I wore sandals 24/7. I called myself the "Nine-Toed Fox."

Due to me speech impediment, my family thought I said "Nine-toed sloth". The monicker stuck 'cause they said I was lazy. My brother Bert had a club foot & remained Moma's favorite

. Bert and I made a living by picking coals off the railroad tracks and selling them to gypsies. My parents made scarves out of dryer lint. Though poor, we were a happy family.

And then pa was shooting at some food. Up from the ground came some bubbling crude. We went from being dirt poor to being super rich. All the gypsies we knew all of a sudden

began asking for money. But Pa always said, "Son, you can do a lot of stupid things. But NEVER trust any of those damned gypsies." So I told them no and they put a curse on me.

Joke's on them though, the money I saved would be more than enough to get the curse lifted. All I had to do was get myself to a professional curse lifter, which was hard since the

height of the table made it impossible for me to reach the phone book to locate such a professional. Darn shrinking curse...

Maybe I could climb the table leg... but then how would I manage to operate the phone? Oh, why do I feel like I'm trapped in the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?" Alice would know