4 Most Painful Things I’ve Stepped in My House

I am in my eleventh year as a dad of three kids. In that time I have stepped on all sorts of things. Usually, the kids are to blame but not all of them were their fault. Here are the worst that I have stepped on that did not actually pierce the skin or draw blood. I have excluded the things that have actually cut me because, honestly, they don't hurt as much.

4 - A Chocolate Chip

The other night I was walking around in the kitchen in only my stocking feet. As I walked over to throw something in the garbage a sudden stabbing pain pierced the bottom of my right foot an inch to the right of the "ball." Expecting to have stepped on a wayward screw, which I had dropped a few earlier in the day, I was surprised that a Nestle chocolate chip was what had stabbed me. The kids had been snacking on them earlier in the day and I believe my daughter made her special "chocolate sauce," which is just chocolate chips melted down in a glass cup in the microwave. If you had asked me a month ago if it would hurt to step on a chocolate chip I would have likely said no. But now it's on my list.

3 - My phone

Can't blame the kids for this one. Earlier this fall I was watching TV with the kids and had set my phone down on the floor next to the couch. I got up from the couch and inexplicably lost my balance while standing up and stepped on the edge of my iPhone. Being housed in an Otterbox is really what caused the pain. I could have sworn I was going to have blood drawn but, like most times when you mash your foot it is more durable than I thought.

2 - LEGO Bricks

LEGO bricks, which is what LEGO wants us to call more than one LEGO, have the most notorious reputation for assaulting the feet of parents for good reason. They are small, can hide easily in the carpet causing them to get missed upon cleanup, thus sniping you when you can't see it coming. Usually, when I step on a lego it isn't the medium thickness 2x4 pieces you perhaps think of first. It's usually one of the super-thin 1x2 or 4x4 pieces. They get turned sideways and become a very pokey blade. They are bad, but they aren't the worst thing to poke the bottom of my foot.

1 - Beyblade

A year ago I couldn't tell you what a Beyblade was. My son had friends at school who had them and he had to have some too. They are pretty cool. They are like a top in that you pull the "ripper" to get them spinning and drop them into an "arena" where the two or three Beyblades bounce off of each other until they stop or, more interestingly, one causes the other to come apart into its three pieces. It's fun! I've played with them with my son and it's cool to watch them battle. They certainly are not inherently dangerous. But one day my son had left the middle piece of one of his Beyblades on the floor of the living room. As you can see in the picture above, it blended in and I stepped on it with all of my weight jabbing one of the pointy projections into my heel. I yelled in pain and fell down having lost my balance trying to get my foot off of the cast metal piece as quickly as possible. I couldn't believe I wasn't bleeding all over the carpet.