toewatch two

Late afternoon in February.
The old chateau is peaceful.
A handsome poet is seated in an armchair, his sore toe resting on a cushion in front of him.
All is right with the world.
Aprubtly the front door opens.
Little three year old Ryan stomps into the house in joyous mood.
He is pretending to be a tractor.
"Vrooom," he says severally.
He stomps through every room in the house.
Presently he finds Ireland's greatest living poet in the living room.
Ryan does a few stomp pasts before finally hitting the toe.
"Hey," I muse calmly, "I've just formulated a whole new mathematical theory of exisistence, uniting quantum and relativity: The chances of a child or dog or other discrete variable doing a hideous injury to an innocently exposed toe rise exponentially in relation to the presence of any pre-existing pain symptoms in the toe in question, according to the formula Yowch = MC Hammer, where Yowch is a cosmic cry of pain and MC Hammer is a 1980's rapper who had two good hits, one a rip off of Super Freak and the other a well intentioned mood piece with religious overtones called You've Got To Pray Just To Make It Today."