Frankfurt Bobalage had been sweating away at constructing the family's new rec room in the basement. The walls had been put up, the power and plumbing run through and working. He had only to finish the trim, the supports and construct the audio/video cabinets. He nailed and hammered, hammered and nailed. There was a knock at the door; no one else was home so he stood up angrily and went to investigate the afternoon caller. He dropped his hammer on his third left toe and cut it clean off.
"Dammit! That was my good one," he said, collecting up his toe and proceeding to the door. His surprise at who was behind the door was so minimal that it hardy warranted mentioning (Sorry).
"How the hell are ya Furty?!!" It was his truly annoying neighbor Fred MacAlbury. He had always hated the name "Furty"; high school thing.
"Say, doing some work eh? Nice toe, Jesus you and your sharp edged hammers. Heh!! Yeah well, I was working on my house and I hear you have a whole lotta nails. Thought may be I could scam a few off ya." Frankfurt got curious.
"Oh, uh, what is it you're building mac?" Mac turned around, fell crashing to his knees, and started to cry, then stopped suddenly and stood up, smiling. "Gotcha!"
What a prick, thought Frankfurt. Mac had successfully avoided the questioning, since Frankfurt only desired to be rid of him and get back to the basement. He was so desperate to be alone that he accidentally gave Mac his entire load of 43 Bag-o-Nails packages. He quickly dismissed Mac and set back to work, trying to forget about the unpleasant experience and adapt to working with the one less toe.
Reality accosted him in the head and whispered "Hey rekcuf, you gave all your nails away!" He was unhappy. He couldn't go ask for them back, not with just the four toes on his foot. He started to gather up all the nail-like substances that he had lying around the house. Things like bobby pins, screws, staples, anything that might hold pieces of wood together.
He worked diligently for another 3 hours, exhausting his entire supply of nail-substitutes. During the course of the work he had lost another toe which he could not account for. He looked about the room, slowly, taking in the unique display of personal home renovation that he had created with a hammer, some nails, a carrot, 2 bobby pins, 43 tacks, 2 bottles of elmers white glue, a package of Big League Chew, the hamsters, 7 hair bands, a package of crayola markers, the TV antenna, 2 bits of string, the left door of the porsche, 14 breath mints, 8 playing cards, 6 video tapes, the complete works of Shakespeare, some clock bits (he didn't think the clock was really USING them), the cat, a kitchen chair, 39 cheerios, a bugle and, Oh! There's that toe, holding the ceiling beams up.
Frankfurt passed away shortly after that. The coroner's report revealed that he had died of massive toe loss anxiety.