Its name is Bootwick Quigley, and I think it comes in peace

Every afternoon at 2:00, I chase the children upstairs for naptime, take off my medical boot, and breathe a huge sigh of relief. I hobble into the living room, sit down, and spend a few precious minutes writing before my kids are awake and bouncing around the house again.

I had no inkling yesterday would deviate so much from the usual routine. After I settled into my armchair with my laptop and a Diet Coke and prepared to rip into a scene of my manuscript, I heard a noise from the bedroom.

Scuff-clink. Scuff-clink. Scuff-clink.

Honestly, I should have checked out the noise, but I just assumed the cats were up to some catty shenanigans -- generally a safe bet around Casa Fenner. How could I have known this was happening?

Like something from The Shining, isn't it? Red Rum ... Red Rum ... 

Then this leapt onto the ottoman.

Unexpected medical boot is unexpected! 

"Gaaah!" I would have screamed, except my kids were actually asleep (a rare, treasured event), so the sound came out as a mangled whisper.

Then it cleared its throat (It has a throat? I am woefully ignorant of boot anatomy!) and said, in an Australian accent, "My name is Bootwick Quigley. My friends call me Boot. We've gotten off to a bad start, haven't we?"

My mouth was hanging open, but I managed to say, "B-b-bad start?"

"I checked your last few blog posts when you left to buy groceries yesterday. Really, you hate me with the intensity of a thousand suns? Comparing me to the Spanish Inquisition is extreme, even for hyperbole -- it's not as though I'm the Grand Inquisitor of boots. I can't help my rigid, uncomfortable nature; it's how I was made."

"Y-y-you're Australian?" A more pertinent question would have been how he got the passwords to my computer and what other private data he'd been mining (Does he have my Amazon password? What would a boot buy for himself? A copy of Footloose or My Left Foot? Would that be the equivalent of boot pr0n?), but my thoughts were as coherent as a houseplant's. I was even more astonished to see his eyebrows rise. Holy crap, he has eyebrows! Little eyebrows made of velcro!

"It's how I was made," Boot repeated slowly, as though he was speaking to a child.

"What do you want?" I could hardly resist the urge to kick Boot off the footstool and beat him with the nearest lamp like he was an enormous bug. Reinforced metal construction -- he's the Iron Man of medical equipment! The wooden lamp wouldn't stand a chance! 

"Ahh, to the point. All business. Very well." He shifted, the heel part rocking a little to the right as he adjusted his stance on the ottoman. "We're partners, as I reckon it. You can't get around without me; I can't get around without you. We must come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, as it were."

Oh geez, what kind of understanding could a mutant piece of footwear possibly want with me?

To be continued ...