Ok, ow. That hurt.

As I’m leaving the local Sushi bar, one of the cooks notices me limping away and asks, “What happened to your foot?”

My answer back caused the entire restaurant to go quiet, “A firefighter kicked me.” Which, as it turned out, was the gosh-honest truth.

Here’s what happened.

My brother-in-law was helping to set up a commercial fireworks display for a local baseball game, and I got permission to go on site and take some photography of the crew and the display.

While I’m back there, I hear the crowd go wild, and a baseball comes flying over the fence. It lands and rolls away. After a few moments of talking, I ask, “Should I go get it?” And they indicate ‘why not,’ as that always happens and they pointed to one back over by the wall sitting in the grass.

So, I start walking over to it. As I do, I notice that there’s some lady (a term I’ll revoke shortly) way off in the distance behind me who’s running toward the ball. Turns out, it was one of the local firefighters who’s there every night there’s fireworks.

Figuring she’s had ample opportunity all season to pick up things flying over the fence, I sprint for the ball and easily get to it before her. As I go to reach down and pick it up, she shoves me.

Having a camera in one hand, I knock the ball away from both of us, run over to it, and plant both feet tightly around the ball so it can’t be dislodged.

She comes running over, and while I want to surmise she was “playfully” trying to kick the ball out from between my feet, she ended up kicking my heel in. And, from what I’ve recently learned, those boots have steel toes in them.

Eventually, I relented, deciding that to me it was just another piece of worthless clutter; I stepped back and let her have it. The ball, not with the back of a shovel, like I now contemplate.