162

Slowpoke
Posted on December 6, 2017 by David M Willis
Both of November's bonus strips for are up! The first strip was decided by vote to be a Sierra strip, and the second strip is about Dina and Becky! All Patrons can go check these bonus strips out at the Dumbing of Age Patreon.

162 thoughts on “Slowpoke”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    I told you to get Carla to rebuild you, Joyce!

    1. user 18

      I wonder how long it’ll take for someone to post some cyborg Joyce fanart?

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it’s this: the person who asks, volunteers. 🙂

      2. Doctor_Who

        You will be hugged. Resistance is futile.

        1. Abel Undercity

          Gah. Hugs at 500 lbs. PSI.

        2. Kyrinthic

          It would appear the answer to user18’s question is 16 minutes.

          Thats a very cute picture btw.

    2. Architex

      Call Jeph! Faye and Bubs should get on this!

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        Interesting. So far, the world of QC seems to be entirely one of humans and AIs, with Clinton and his hand being the only hint of cyborg-ish-ness. But surely a world in which Bubbles and Punchbot exist, is a world in which Grandpa from Spy Kids 3 could have a real-world version of that robotic bodysuit.

        Of course, that raises ethical questions of the sort that Momo is interested in. How much intelligence can you put into the robosuit itself before it becomes a legal person with legal rights?

        (And when I first typed “Punchbot” I typoed it as “Punchbutt.” Apparently Butts Disease can be transmitted visually.)

        1. Liliet

          See: Freefall, actually. A world in which a guy is in a romantic relationship with the AI in his own robosuit 0.0

        2. N0083rp00F

          Do you mean the police chief?
          That reminds me – I haven’t read that in a while – time to play catch-up again.

        3. Jamie

          I never got a romantic vibe from that… Close workmates, sure, but no romance.

        4. Pablo360

          Close workmates? They’re practically a single person.

      2. Dg

        Clearly Hannelore and Faye should be around to show how to salvage the nail.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          It’s pretty straightforward. Assuming it wasn’t ripped off in the accident, then it’s the bleeding under the nail that gradually separates the nail from the bed. So all you gotta do, when you see that purple blot forming under the nail, is to drill straight through the nail into it and squirt the blood out to stop it cold.

          It doesn’t hurt; the nail itself is dead tissue with no nerves; and there’s a pool of blood between that and the nail bed itself (where the nerves are) so unless you keep going and jab down into the nail bed instead of stopping once you’re through the nail, all you’ll feel is a bit of pressure.

          Do it manually with a tiny drill bit in your fingers, or the tip of a sharp knife twiddled back and forth, rather than using any kind of powered drill like an idiot, I hope I don’t need to say.

          Once you’ve got the hole drilled, just push down with the pad of your finger/toe against a flat surface to force as much of the blood out as you can. If there’s enough there already for it to be hurting then you will probably get a squirt of blood when you remove the tool, so don’t be surprised by that. Also, it will feel a lot better instantly when the pressure is relieved.

          The stain on the underside of the nail, as well as the hole itself, will eventually grow out with the rest of the nail.

          Oh, and you should probably disinfect the surface of the nail and your drill bit first, just as a precaution.

          Really not a big deal at all.

        2. thejeff

          The other suggestion for the procedure is to burn through with a heated paper clip.

        3. Dg

          Yea, that’s what they did in QC(which has the advantage of being self-sterilizing).

        4. ValdVin

          Born of experience, I take it? I’m simultaneously impressed and squeamish at the expertise and detail you’ve supplied.

    3. Deanatay

      Shiny and Chrome?

      SHINY AND CHROME

  2. Reflex76

    Gotta say: Joyce looks like she’s screaming at Walky’s crotch in the last panel.

    1. Nono

      It’s liked Canada all over again!

    2. Moose

      Aren’t we all?

    3. Beef

      Oppa Indiana style

  3. AnvilPro

    There will never be enough Mike in this comic. Even if Willis remade the entire comic to just be Mike insulting the audience and commenting on current events, it still wouldn’t be enough

    1. geno

      I enjoy Mike, but he didn’t add much here.

    2. 3oranges

      What if he every last panel was just Mike kicking someone or something, say after it had been laughed at? Would that be enough?

  4. LadyThrimbletrimmer

    As a trans girl who really wants a robot body of her own- I feel ya, Joyce.

  5. Danni

    “i want a new body” is how im feeling about my current body

    1. Agemegos

      Yep. There’s a lot of it about.

    2. Kamino Neko

      Same…If it were under warranty, I’d totally send it back for a replacement.

    3. Inahc

      Yeah. And might as well throw in a new brain.

    4. ProfessorDetective

      Amen to that.

  6. Jack

    Is this on a new tablet? The line art and the lettering look different (and also better!)

  7. ValdVin

    Does the lettering look different than usual here?

    1. tim gueguen

      Yeah, it looks like it didn’t render properly or something.

  8. Yumi

    Same.
    Also, do the lines look weird in this or are my eyes being weird?

    1. crys

      not just you! both the lettering and lines look different to me.

    2. DinaWho

      Text seems skinny to me too.

  9. Roger

    does this comic feel like its lower definition to anyone else?

    1. Meta

      Looks higher definition to me. The font definitely looks new as well.

    2. Roger

      oh damnit the bonus strips look amazing again

      1. ValdVin

        I know! This little bit between Dina and Becky ups the likelihood that I’llask Spousal Ms ValdVin for DofA Patreon for Xmas.

  10. Freezer

    Walky really is a big 12 year-old, isn’t he?

    1. DailyBrad

      Sometimes, though this is actually tactful by his standards. He only completed the thought when she insisted on it, and seemed to catch himself before. like, he knew it was going to freak her out and his morbid curiosity got the better of him and he tried to catch it before.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe he was thinking about something deeper, then deflected once he was in the spotlight?

  11. Keulen

    Is Joyce really gonna hop on one foot everywhere she goes? Because that sounds like a good way to get even more injuries.

    1. Just Me

      What she needs is a walking cane and one open toe sandal. No one walks like that for long without falling over.

    2. ValdVin

      Nobody’s told her to hop on over to the crutch store or something? (Resources dependant of course.)

      When I last cranked a toe and lost a nail (my first) it didn’t reduce me to hopping. And he ore that I broke one but the doc just taped it to the next one.

  12. Adept Arcanist

    Yeah, these fragile meatbags suck.

  13. Mr. Mendo

    Man, even in panel one, Joyce is having none of Walky’s shit, today…

  14. Mandy

    I gotta be honest, I definitely share Joyce’s level of horror on this topic. I’ve been lucky enough never to have a nail fall off, but I find the whole idea gruesome. I’m sure if one of mine ever falls off, I might just drop dead of horror.

    1. Valdrax

      It’s… a little gross. And it’s quite uncomfortable for a couple of weeks until the nail bed become as familiar with and as insensitive to air and touch at the rest of your skin. But it grows back within a year or so, so NBD.

      1. King Daniel

        A year?

        So what you’re saying is, Joyce is going to go the rest of the comic without a toenail if/when it falls off. 😛

        1. Valdrax

          Hah, probably. And it takes a while for the nail to come off too. It happens because blood underneath it clots, gluing it in place, but it’s still trying to grow. It’s when the nail warps and cracks under the strain that it goes. I think it was about 1-2 months after I broke my toe that that happened for me. So who knows in comic time how long that’ll be.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          I mean, one can just drill a small hole through the nail to the pool of blood so you can get the blood out of there, rather than having the blood trapped there forcing the underside of the nail off the nail bed, which resolves the problem immediately, so that’s an alternative option.

    2. Bruceski

      My thumbnail did that after I got it slammed in a car door. Frankly, I had other things to worry about so it didn’t have much of an impact (unlike the door, ba-dum tssh).

  15. Nicster216

    I meaaaann none of them could just carry her?

    1. UniqueSnowflake2

      Maybe they should call the toe truck.

      1. SylntSyco

        I love and hate you in the same breath for this….

    2. ESM

      If they’re going from one point of campus to another, a Lyft would be like $2.

    3. CoMa

      I doubt they’d be strong enough to carry her farther than a bunch of metres. Walky doesn’t work out anything.
      Sarah might be strong enough, but I doubt she’d carry her outside of an emergency, and Joyce probably wouldn’t want to be a bother.
      And Mike…well, he’s Mike. I doubt ANYONE (of the group who knows him) would want to be carried by him.

      1. Deanatay

        Mike only carries people by lifting them by the waistband of their underwear.

        So, agreed.

      2. Kryss LaBryn

        Piggyback, sheesh, guys. Puts all the weight on one’s hips and legs, which can hold a LOT more weight than one’s arms. Nbd.

        Or, like, a cane, that would help a lot too, sheesh.

        1. CoMa

          But even piggybacking a grown-up person can be pretty tiring thing.
          But I have to admit, it’d be worth a try for them…probably.

    4. Pl0x

      Jacob’s not here.

  16. Sean Dillon

    And Joyce discovers the basis for every single thought of the LessWrong crowd.

  17. Passchendaele

    Joyce’s eyes exist in only two sizes – dinner plate and pea.

  18. Romanticide

    I hit really really bad one of my hand thumbs when I was in elementary school, It got all purple and some fluid got inside if I remember well. The nail never fell but it got quite exposed and I learned that nails where longer that I could imagine at the time…

    1. Tacos

      I snapped the nail on my big toe once back in 5th grade. I was barefoot and idly tapping my foot on the tile floor of our home when I guess I somehow tapped my toe at a weird angle and one side of my toenail broke. Like one side of my toenail was flapping in the air while still connected by the other side. I freaked and thought that if I held the nail in place, it’d somehow fuse back together so I wrapped my big toe in wire for a few weeks but nothing happened. Eventually I gave up and soaked my foot in water to loosen the rest of the nail and ripped it off.

      1. not someone else

        My mom accidentally slammed the car trunk on one of my ring fingers when I was like five or six. The nail fell off and there’s still a white scar underneath that’s visible if you press on the existing nail.

      2. Ansel

        I broke mine down really bad because I stepped over a ledge and fell down a steep hill once (it was really dark and there was a bush growing out an extra foot from where the ground ended), but was lucky enough to keep the base of it.

    2. Portland

      A bad toe injury as a kid for me didn’t cause the nail to fall off, but somehow I wound up cracking the root. My toenail still has a visible crack right down the middle. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s kind of great for freaking people out with.

    3. BenRG

      For some reason my big toe nails break longitudinally at about half-width. So, I get a ‘dead’ half and ‘growing’ half for a few months.

    4. Needfuldoer

      A few years ago I was vacuuming barefoot, stopped paying attention, and pulled the vacuum back full speed into a big toe. The nail got a couple nice jagged fractures, and I had to keep up on it with sandpaper and super glue for a couple months until all the damage finally grew out.

      The same kind of break happened to the thumb on my dominant hand last year while I was fixing a printer. Part won’t budge, pull harder, part still won’t budge, pull even harder, SMACK. Right into the frame.

      1. Jhon

        Wait, what? Sandpaper? WHY??

    5. Pl0x

      When I was 5 the glass front door of my house fell on my big toe. The nail broke right off, and there was much blood. The newly grown nail has become kind of rotten. It’s thicker, smellier, and harder to clip off.

    6. Liliet

      I tripped on a vacuum cable once, and half tore off the nail on my little toe. It hurt like hell, but wasn’t all that far. My mom bandaged it up and said I’d be okay in a couple of days. The next day she already said I didn’t need the bandage.
      The thing is, the vaccuum cleaner was still standing in the middle of the living room, with the cable in the exact same position. So obviously, I tripped on it again, and hurt that same toenail (already loosened).
      I was pissed off at my mom, at the vacuum cleaner, at my luck and at the stupid toenail. I kept it bandaged at first, then stopped but was still very careful, and kept hoping it would fuse back, until it became completely clear that there was a new toenail under it, and it was only held in place by one edge. So I tore it off.

      It was… a harrowing experience, that whole process 0.0

      1. ValdVin

        In the near-dark I whanged my little toe against an upright vacuum and that’s how I broke it. It only got taped to the next one. Fair amount of pain, but it subsided quickly enough.

        Maybe our cats are trying to warn us about vacuums. They certainly are dangerous.

  19. Pablo360

    I can’t tell if Walky’s joking, foolish, right, or all three.

    1. DailyBrad

      Right, in this case, though he can still be a bit foolish. He’s not joking, at any rate, the toenail very well may fall off.

  20. Stephen Bierce

    About a dozen years ago, I was wondering why the nail on my left foot’s big toe stopped growing.
    Turned out it was growing, but because it broke AT THE ROOT a new nail was growing UNDERNEATH the old one. Wound up poking through the skin, causing a fungal infection that caused me to visit a podiatrist…and the side effects of both the infection and the treatment medicine cost me my job as a retail salesman/cashier.
    So what Walky’s talking about ISN’T a worst-case scenerio.
    *plays “At The Hop” on the hacked P.A. system*

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Let’s GO!

  21. Kernanator

    Now there’s a whole new reason to not read the comments.

    1. Derek

      huh, why?

      1. not someone else

        People telling stories about their terrible digit injuries.

        1. Derek

          oooh

        2. CoMa

          Yep. I still read them. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t stop myself. And now my brain goes into head cinema mode. ugh.

  22. Architex

    Joyce is gonna kill at the one-legged ass-kicking contest later.

  23. Tacos

    If only Joyce were a Transformer. Then she could get a new body no probs.

  24. Sionyx

    Love how we can see Walky realizing that Joyce isn’t going to take this news well. I wonder if he continued the question to give Joyce fair warning or to avoid Joyce being overly persistent.

  25. Deadjolras

    As someone who is very squeamish and hasn’t suffered anything worse than a sprained ankle, this toe arc and people sharing similar experiences in the comments make me cringe so hard it hurts.

  26. Reltzik

    See, here’s the injustice.

    Joyce doesn’t WANT something gross like that happening to her body, and Walky DOES want something gross like that happening to his.

  27. geno

    I really want a hoodie like Walkys. It’s very stylish

  28. Scolopendra

    Relatable. I dropped something on my big toe once, and a few weeks later, noticed a white band running horizontally across the toenail. Turns out it was another toenail, growing beneath the old one. Ended up shoving it out of the way and supplanting it. The strangest thing is it happened to my other big toe as well, which hadn’t sustained any injuries…

    1. Koms

      Nearly the same thing happened to me

  29. Opus the Poet

    One of the side effects of being unkillable is losing several toenails and regrowing them as you live. I’m in the process of losing and regrowing 2at once ATM. One was separated from the nailbed because it was hitting the inside of my shoe as I walked, and the other was right on top of where I broke my toe a few weeks back. That’s one on each foot. And the groken toe only quits hurting when my foot is warm which requires keeping said foot immersed in warm trending towards hot water, between 100 and 140°F

  30. tirachokko

    I’ve had nails seem like they were gonna fall off (the nail separated from the bed) and I freaked out and bandaid’ded that shit back onto my toes and denied it for months and when the scab finally separated from my skin, turns out it was okay. The new nail had grown underneath and apparently would’ve been ingrown/impacted had i continued to deny and bandaid my toenail back on oops.

    I also had a friend have that happen as a child, but with a fingernail, and in her panic and confusion at the doc’s place, she was convinced her nail had to come off. Long story short, she pulled it off herself while she was in the room alone, the doc came back and was like yo wtf, and eventually the fingernail grew back anyways.

  31. Koms

    What would Ultrajoyce look like?

  32. HeatherJean

    Since we’re sharing lost-nail experiences:
    I’ve lost the nail on my right big toe (the same one Joyce injured) 3 times. Each time the old nail didn’t fall off until there was enough new nail under it to protect the nailbed. Really scary looking though.
    Not really crippling, so I gather that Joyce has actualy broken the toe since she’s hobbling like that.

    1. CoMa

      I believe the whole toe was crushed, so if not broken, it is definitely bruised and swollen, so it probably hurts to strain it, even without the toenail being hurt.

  33. JessWitt

    An arm brace and THEN a leg brace. Watch out Joyce, rule of threes.

  34. Gojira

    Given the sliding time scale of this comic, cybernetic body replacement might be a reality before Joyce’s toe fully heals.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      Based on personal experience, let’s say it takes about 2 months to heal to a reasonable degree. The in-universe/real world time ration is still on the order of 1:60, so that’s 120 months our time — 10 years from now. I’m not expecting medicine to move that fast, although you never know.

      Now, by Move-Out Day in 2055 — that could be a real possibility.

      1. Ferdinand Rosenthal

        A full body has energy, hormone, and specialized cell problems keeping it at bay, but a whole new toe or leg is somewhat available now.

  35. Dask1124

    Big one on my right foot’s actually in the midst of falling off right now (after an ingrown toenail surgery). It’s come clean from the base but is still attached to part of the bed; the new one hasn’t started growing yet. I, too, completely freaked out once I realized that it was coming off, since I managed to make it 21 years withoit ever hearing of this happening.

  36. Ferdinand Rosenthal

    I’ve had a plague of ingrown nails due to a mix of weird footwear not really matching my wide feet and walking hundreds of miles.

    They take them out. The whole thing. So they can regrow properly….

  37. ESM

    Y’know, between this and “Sleep off that roofie it’s cool”, Joyce has just the shittiest friends. Jacob takes her Ruth for medical attention, which makes no sense. Ruth suggests Carla look at it, which also makes no sense, Carla tells Joyce to not bother seeing a doctor about a broken bone and tape it together, which is horrible advice, and now they’re making the girl with the broken toe HOP to presumably a clinic. It’s like two dollars to get her a Lyft, you’re just assholes and Joyce should stop hanging out with you.

    1. Ferdinand Rosenthal

      The immediate answer is that seeing Joyce hop around is seemingly a gag.

      The secondary answer is that, yes, if this was real life, I would at least hope that one of her friends would let her use them as a crutch or even carry her more like Jacob did.

      1. ESM

        I get that characters acting like assholes to better set up a gag is a common trope in sitcom comedy, and that Joyce tends to be the one getting shit on for it even back in the Walkyverse, but DoA jerkiness is mostly rude comments, while this level of not-giving-a-shit is around the “Family Guy” point. Ruth, whose literal job is to point people to clinics, made fun of Joyce and told her to go to Carla. There is zero reason to think Carla would be useful in this situation, so it feels more like Ruth is fucking with Joyce and actively trying to hurt her.

        1. Derek

          There IS a reason Ruth would think of Carla: Carla is a noted active skater, there’s a good chance that she has had wipeouts and knows her way around typical skater injuries

        2. Thulcandran

          She also fixed Amber up after a potentially fatal car-on-skateboard accident.

        3. random832

          The title of the comic isn’t good-decisioning of age.

    2. ESM

      Also, Ruth never told Joyce what the on-campus medical resources were, and told her to see Carla instead. She’s the RA! I know Ruth being a bad RA is a plot element and all, but Christ, she didn’t even try, actively made fun of Joyce’s injury, and now has apparently ditched her to hop to a clinic (along with Joe, Carla, and Jacob, but at least they’re not being paid to be useful in this kind of situation).

      I understand that Joyce can’t get herself a Lyft to the clinic because she spent literally all her money feeding Becky, but where was Joe? Jacob? Ruth? The clinic has to be less than a mile away, it would’ve cost like two dollars. What a bunch of cheap jerks, even by sitcom standards.

      Joyce needs better friends, and could maybe even sue the school if the toe ends up getting infected or whatever.

      1. BBCC

        A) The reason Carla told her not to go to the hospital was because the hospital’s not likely to do much for a broken toe. At most, they’d give her pain meds and tape it for her rather than her do it herself.

        B) There’s never been an implication that Joyce went broke feeding Becky – especially since Becky was there for 2 weeks and they were feeding her off Joyce’s meal plan (which I’m sure Becky would be happy to reimburse now that she has a job and a place to crash).

        C) Not sure how Carla’s a bad friend when she and Joyce aren’t friends at all.

        D) Ruth told her to check with Carla because Carla’s pretty good at first aid and medic stuff and could probably give Joyce a rundown on what to expect.

        E) Would a Lyft even bother with such a short distance?

        1. ESM

          A. My (admittedly secondhand) understanding is that Carla is wrong and a broken toe would get an X-Ray to see if it was displaced and needed surgery

          B. Re-reading, you’re right that Joyce wasn’t directly spending money on Becky, but it’s explicitly stated that she was skipping meals because she had literally 0 dollars (it was part of the reason Becky’s Rad $20 Haircut led to such a shitstorm in the comments), so she can’t buy herself a Lyft now.

          C. This is fair.

          D. Ruth is the RA, there are campus resources she should be giving Joyce, not “the roller skating girl gets hurt a lot, maybe she’d know”

          E. I once took an Uber 6 blocks for 17 cents because there was a big guy I’d pissed off between me and my destination and it was dark out. There’s no minimum distance.

        2. BBCC

          A) I’ve seen conflicting information. I’ve seen some people say that and others who say they would do exactly what Carla told Joyce to do. I guess it would depend on whether or not Joyce thinks it would be worth what going to the ER would cost. This is America and so my guess is ‘expensive as all get out’. A lot of people were saying it wouldn’t be worth it for the financial risk alone.

          B) She was skipping meals because she had a limited amount of money on that plan. So she wanted to skip breakfast to pay for Becky to eat. And again, that was for two weeks or so. We also know Joyce likes to go shopping, so she’s definitely not literally $0 broke.

          D) I still think you’re selling Ruth short. Saying ‘Go ask Carla before going to the hospital because she does a lot of first aid/medic stuff and she can probably tell you better than I can if you need to go to the hospital.’ Which was her first suggestion – hospital. Carla’s the one who said ‘Hospital won’t be worth it, here’s how you fix that’. Plus it was very early in the morning so I’m kinda doubtful that the clinic or med centre or whatever it’s called would be open for non-emergencies (I was about to say real emergencies probably go to the hospital, but Ruth definitely was considered an emergency and she was kept in the mental health centre so probably not).

          E) Fair enough. I don’t cab much so I wasn’t sure.

        3. BBCC

          Okay, I just double checked and what Ruth actually said was ‘If you don’t want to go to the hospital, Carla does this a lot and might know what to do’. She didn’t say ‘No hospital’. She said if Joyce didn’t want to go.

        4. thejeff

          1) At the time of the injury, the clinic would have been closed. Immediate medical attention would have meant the emergency room – which would be thousands of dollars just to walk in and be seen (and likely hours of sitting in the corner while they deal with actual emergencies.)
          My advice would have been Carla’s first aid and a later trip to the clinic.
          2)Hate to say it, but evidence suggests they’re headed to class, not a clinic. This looks like the normal morning walking to class crowd – Sarah’s got her book, Walky’s got his bookbag.
          3) Frankly, seems normal college behavior to me – first aid applied, immediate crisis over, continue about your lives. Using one of the others as a crutch would seem like a good idea though.

          Of all of them, I’d trust Sarah’s instincts here. If she’s not shipping Joyce off to the hospital, it’s probably meant to be okay.

      2. Nymphie

        Nah, she might have just spent all her money on new gym clothes and finished with a pulse watch, and maybe a honey bun

      3. ischemgeek

        To be fair, the “make fun of the injury” thing is a legit bedside manner technique, though Ruth is applying it poorly. Basically the idea is that it reassures the patient if the doctor seeing them is relaxed enough about the situation to joke about it. Portraying the, “Yep, another broken [insert part here]. That’s like my fifth today. Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” nonchalance from the medical expert side can really help to reassure people and relax them about the situation – and if people relax about it, they’re less likely to get shocky or have panic attacks or otherwise freak out.

    3. Roborat

      I assumed they were going to class.

  38. Stu

    Oddly enough, she’ll probably feel a LOT better once it does. I smashed my thumb when closing a safe, and the pressure was unbelievable until it started to crack apart and tear out. After that it was very tender, but felt a LOT better compared to before.

  39. BenRG

    I’m sorry but this level of bodily ignorance is going a bit too far. I’m guessing there is a point where Joyce turned off listening about things that grossed her out simply because of said grossing out!

    That said, it’s really in-character for this to be the biggest thing on Walky’s mind right now!

    1. timemonkey

      Why would anyone talk about losing toenails unless it had happened to someone she knew?

    2. BenRG

      Maybe I’m old fashioned but we had lots of health classes at my elementary and middle schools. Illustrated by colour videos. I saw my first shattered toenail when I was about 10 years old and was also treated to a sight of the ‘heated needle’ treatment in glorious full Technicolour.

  40. Lingo

    Boy I got through the comments really quickly tonight!

  41. Bagge

    Ouch.

  42. Jaime

    This is anecdotal, but my experience of broken toes has been that medical professionals pretty much give the same advice Carla did.

    For a while when she was a pre-teen/young teenager my middle sister could not ABIDE wearing closed-in shoes unless there was physically snow on the ground. (You do NOT want to know about the fights she had with my mom over that…) But she broke her big toe once due to running around and tripping in sandals. My mom took her to the ER (ringing up a very large medical bill) and the doc basically said, “Yeah, we don’t generally put toes in a cast – keep ice on it, keep that foot elevated, and stay off it.”

    I’m pretty sure I’ve broken two or three toes over the course of my life. (I am very clumsy and have a bad tendency to trip over/walk into things in bare feet. Also kicking solid things very hard when wearing stiff boots is not the world’s best idea.) I’ve never bothered going to the doctor because I don’t want to pay to be told to be less clumsy. They have all healed fine.

    Granted, neither my sister’s broken toe or my (suspected) broken toes were that bad. Hers was, according to the x-ray, a hairline fracture, which mine presumably were as well. Neither of us have ever lost toenails, although the last time I walked into a chair leg in the dark, my left middle toe swelled up and turned black-and-blue; I couldn’t curl it for about two weeks. But I could still walk as long as I wore comfy shoes.

    If Joyce has seriously shattered her toe, she might need an aircast and/or a crutch, as other commenters have noted. I can’t tell whether she is physically unable to walk on that foot or just is not doing so because it hurts.

    (That’s a good sign of whether or not something is seriously broken/hurt. If you can stand on it/flex it/rotate it despite the pain, it may be badly but not seriously broken or hurt. If you can’t, get thee to a doctor. A couple of years ago I slipped and fell down a flight of stairs and absolutely *shattered* my right wrist. I was trying to convince myself that it was only badly sprained, not broken – until I realized that barely touching it with a fingertip made me almost scream in pain. OUCH.)

    PS: My wrist is fine now and I have a steel plate in my arm, so I’m well on my way to becoming a cyborg.

    1. ischemgeek

      Standard medical advice, unless the toe is severely crushed (like “might be in need of amputation” level crushed) or the fracture is open is to buddy-tape and RICE it (Rest Ice Compression Elevation – though only ice until the initial swelling is down as nowadays they say that icing too long into the recovery process makes stuff heal more slowly). A big toe, because it’s not as easy to buddy-tape, might get a splint if the break is spectacular/unstable enough.

      Source: I’ve broken/dislocated toes often enough and severely enough that my little toes have about three extra permanent bends in them and my big toes each have one permanent extra bend in them (they’re even symmetrical, which is a funny coincidence, in the case of my big toes – my little toes just look constantly mangled. My toenails face sideways on them now because of how badly they’ve broke in the past). Jijitsu + a tendency to get toes caught in dojo mats will do that. I’m at the point where I don’t even go to the doctor unless it’s really spectacular or needs reduction because they’ll just tell me to splint and RICE and I already know that.

      On the fracture front: Another couple good rules of thumb (some people have weird pain perception, me included, and don’t necessarily follow the “If you can’t do X without severe pain see a doc” rule): If shit that shouldn’t be moveable feels like it’s moving, or if you’re able to move it in ways you shouldn’t be, go to the doctor. If it looks wrong/has extra bumps/bends beyond swelling and/or is obviously deformed, go to the doctor (If you’re not sure if what you’re seeing is what I’m describing, you’re not seeing it. It’s obvious), and lastly, if it is still getting progressively more painful more than 2 days after the injury, see a doctor.

      For me, in addition to the toes, I’ve fracture-dislocated my wrist and broken two fingers and fracture-dislocated my ankle, and then another time I got a hairline fracture on the same ankle. Fracture-dislocations the most painful, and honestly, I’d rather have a simple fracture of a joint than dislocate something in terms of pain level – I have hypermobile enough wrists that sometimes my scaphoid joint pops out and I have to reduce it myself and it’s really unpleasant. Simple fractures hurt, but once the initial ouch is done, it’s not as bad as a dislocation. Dislocations are like 9/10 pain from the moment they happen to whenever they’re reduced (except during the reduction when they’re 10/10 pain. Seriously if you have the choice between meds or not-meds on a dislocation reduction, tell them to dope you up with all they got. I’ve been through reductions both drugged an un-drugged, and I hate shit messing with my brain, but the drugs are worth it for a dislocation reduction, trust me. The worst dislocation I had my only memory of the reduction is I went to sleep in agony and woke up and it felt better. Yes, please. So much better than the alternative, which usually involves a lot of cursing and screaming.

  43. RogueParasol

    Oof, I’ve been there, Joyce. I had several toes on both feet crushed in the space of a week when a horse stomped on them with almost cruel precision. Then the darling thing stood on the right one a second time, just to be safe. I admit I didn’t seek medical help, so I can’t confirm or deny that taping is the way to go, but mine all eventually healed, even without tape. And the nails indeed fell off, which wasn’t as bad as Joyce seems to fear. A little gross, but not as painful as it sounds.

    That said, if anyone out there gets their toes crushed, I would suggest getting some sort of guidance on how to make the healing go better. Mine probably took much longer to heal because I was an idiot and just hobbled around on them until I finally noticed they didn’t hurt anymore…I swear, I have a brain.

  44. ellernock

    i actually did get a toe run over by a car (my mom’s; she felt bad but it was fine) but didn’t lose the nail — i probably SHOULD have, and should get it taken off, bc this was during high school and i still have a groove there. i’m 24. don’t get your toes run over during car line.

  45. JoeHow

    The closes I’ve come to this, while not breaking it, I dropped a PlayStation 3 on my big toe. It was a slim model thank god, but it landed corner first on my toe and split the nail like Moses parting the Red Sea. The PS3 worked fine, guess my toe broke its fall, but my toe was not happy with me afterward.

  46. CoMa

    I wonder what Sarah had to say on all of this.

  47. FacelessDeviant

    It doesnt have to come off. They could just use a red glowing paper clip to burn a hole in the nail so that the pressure can escape.

    But of course, that might be equally horrifying to Joyce.

  48. Danny

    oh yeah, i remember that happening when i was in 2nd grade. it sucked lmao

  49. DarkoNeko

    Gee at least give her something to lean on

    1. Jhon

      Can nobody find a broom or a mop handle that she can use as a cane?

  50. Tobias

    Reading Willis’s twitter commentary on his real life version of this strip, the same was true for me. I hit my toe hard enough to loosen the nail and wouldn’t take my shoe off for days because I was afraid to look at it.

  51. Emily

    Walky is clearly an agent of the adversary sent to test Joyce.

  52. ischemgeek

    I am obviously a total weirdo but when I first broke a toe (I was 5) I thought losing the nail would be the coolest thing evar and went around showing it to anyone who didn’t believe me or wanted to see.

    I might’ve made one of my classmates pass out with my purple and black toe with the toenail half off. It might’ve also made my kindergarden teacher nauseous and have to leave the room.

    There might’ve been a conversation about, “Okay, I know you like seeing injuries – seriously you’re a bit too much like your dad that way – but not everyone wants to see it, and some people feel a little sick when they see it, so just be considerate to your classmates, OK? You can still show it to people if they want to see, but not where everyone can see it.”

    Adult me is aware that Joyce’s reaction here is a bit extreme but definitely more in the realm of “normal” than mine is to losing toe and fingernails from injuries (which remains, “Ooo, cool!”). I admit that I am a total weirdo on this front.

  53. Pyrpyr

    SING IT WITH ME KIDS

    “If I had drawn the blueprints I would surely resign,
    Incompetent design!”

    1. Pyrpyr

      https://youtu.be/Ia4B_xqFjoc
      Poor quality but there ya go

      1. ValdVin

        Until I clicked the link all I could imagine is “Some Randite finally made a musical out of The Fountainhead“.

  54. ZORK

    Honestly, I’d be happy to exchange my boring human body against a shiny android body anytime.

  55. Inarx

    That’s one way to loose your nail.
    Not as dramatic as a perfectly angled basketball, but you can loose yours the boring way if you’d like.

  56. Elsendor

    same joyce same

  57. BlaineBuz

    Incidentally, I broke my toe prior to my freshman year at IU. I lost the nail at the one and only frat party I ever went to…chi phi? First house on the extension street past the main frat row. To this day I hope someone found it.

  58. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

    hopefully it does not fall off

    1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

      because that sounds awful

  59. TheAmazingKMan

    Why doesn’t Joyce get a crutch or something? It seems like hopping around on one foot just isn’t worth it.

  60. chris73

    This is all well and good but I’m just waiting for the gender studies class to commence

  61. GLaDOS

    It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

  62. Doom Shepherd

    Luxury. MY toenail had to be CUT off.

    1. ruhrow

      Sometimes they fall off, sometimes they crack in half, and sometimes they don’t separate completely and you need to slide a knife in under there and *snick* the remaining connections. I’ve done all three, myself, and cracking them is definitely the most painful by far, but recovers the quickest.

  63. ruhrow

    Jesus Joyce, just freaking walk. You smushed your toe, it hurts, either wear a sandal or take the 2min of pain upon cramming it into your Uggs and walk on the outside of your foot, your heel, or just kinda limp. You don’t need to hop on one foot in the most dramatic way.

    1. Roborat

      Yup, just walk on it already. I can see her stumbling and whacking her injured toe against something, or spraining her left ankle, if she keeps this up.
      Or falling and breaking a wrist/arm.

    2. Ansel

      Or lean on someone, even

    3. Myth

      Well, ideally she shouldn’t have to walk long distances on it mere hours after injuring it, especially if it is broken. Trying to walk on it is definitely better than hopping, but you can’t blame her for being a baby about it. Or at least, *I* can’t blame her for it, ‘cause I injured mine basically the same way in July and I was a HUGE baby about it. I injured it the day before I went to a concert, spent the whole time standing in line wishing I could have a wheelchair… for my broken toe… like I was some sort of invalid now.

  64. Jhon

    If you hurt your wrist or ankle, get it looked at by a doctor, even if it’s “only a sprain”. It might seem that the injury is all better, while you have an unhealed fracture that will cause you big trouble years later.

  65. some guy

    that happened to my pinky toe, it was terrible.

  66. CleverTrousers

    Hey! I just pressed the random button and ended up in yesterday’s comic. bongoin’.

  67. Myth

    This was my reaction when I fell and broke my big toe and learned that it meant I’d get to live with a gross toe for six-plus months. (Injury happened in July; toenail fell off in November, so shorter timespan than anticipated, but remainder of toenail still looks weird and messed up.)

    Carla was wrong, by the way. While they didn’t do much about my toe, they did X-ray it (determining that there was a minute, nearly unnoticeable fracture) and gave me a special open-toe orthopedic shoe to wear. No cast, but no tape involved either. Broken big toes get more attention/concern than smaller toes, apparently, as they said if I’d injured one of the small toes it’d just get the tape treatment.

    Realism isn’t super important in a comic, but like… anyone reading this, if you injure your toe, please consult someone who isn’t a random college student with zero medical training, okay?

  68. bonescaro

    yup, it happened to me once. it was terrible. almost happened a second time. not fun

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