Anyone ever gotten a parking ticket while driving a Zipcar before? I got one (stupidly - I just didn't look at the sign and parked during street-cleaning hours) for $45, went to pay it online, and there's $680 of unpaid tickets associated with this car! Not surprising, since it's a rental, but now I don't think I want my name linked to this plate number.

I think I'll call Zipcar and see what they recommend. Maybe they can pay it and charge my account back or something.

Yikes, Jessica. Looks like you're one of the only responsible Zipcar drivers out there.

shrift, definitely soak it. And if there's any doubt there's something left, have someone look at it.

signed,

Had to go to the orthopedist to have painful, months-old, embedded glass removed from big toe a few months ago

I just realized that I could soak my foot and surf the internet at the same time, although maybe I shouldn't do that because I'd probably end up dumping my laptop in the tub.

shrift, buy a bucket.

AmyLiz, I had my glass shard migrating about my foot for about 4 months before I finally complained to mom about my foot hurting and she took me to the doctor. Don't wade in Lake Calhoun! (Of course, this was 20 years ago or so...)

AmyLiz, I had my glass shard migrating about my foot for about 4 months

Migrating! Yikes. My glass stayed firmly in my toe, but boy howdy, did it hurt after three months.

I have thick enough calluses on my feet that I caught a shard of a glass I'd dropped, and walked around on it (not bleeding) for an hour, and then scratched the top of my left foot with the bottom of my right foot, and drew blood on my left foot with the shard.

A very WTF-y moment.

(The shard came out with tweezers, once I was alerted to its presence.

It wasn't a sharp pain, just sort of a dull ache when I ran or otherwise tweaked the tissue where the glass was. It only moved about an inch and a half or so. (I had big feet, even at 11 or however old I was then.)

Down at the beach in the late 60s it wasn't unusual to go around barefoot all day long, especially if you were a teenager. So my cousin was complaining that his foot hurt all day -- it wasn't until that evening when he had his foot propped up on a coffee table that my aunt noticed he had a flat-headed tack embedded in his sole....

Since I've started swimming, I keep finding bits of skin on the bottom of my feet below the toes and on the heels just shredding from the rest of the sole, bleeding quite badly if they get ripped away (I've taken to cutting them with clippers). Using flip-flops to walk from the locker room to the pool isn't helping, so I figure it's happening on the rough surface of the pool itself (maybe when I push off from the sides of the pool).

In non-glass/blood/physical harm news,

The chief copy editor of the New York Times answers readers questions

[link]

The serial comma is addressed