Let’s just see how that title affects site searches.
I usually get a new pair of slippers for Christmas. I wear them every day at home; I like to take off my shoes as soon as I’m in the door and get comfy, but the floor’s too dirty to go around without slippers. (It could be freshly swept and mopped and I still wouldn’t want to go around without footwear. Issue #1.) This year I asked for slippers from a different company than my usual brand since the old company started selling rabbit fur items and I didn’t want to patronize them. Somehow I still got multiple other gifts from that company, but that’s the way it goes.
Anyway, the new slipper place sent a catalog of supposedly comfy shoes and appliances, including items to wear to deal with bunions, corns, hammer toes, etc. I can’t speak to bunions and corns, but I do have a “mallet toe,” which is basically a toe that curves down sharply at the last joint. It’s similar to a hammer toe but a different joint is involved.
(That x-ray is not my feet. It was just a lot less gross looking than putting up a picture of actual feet. The middle toes are mallet toes.)
Seeing the appliances got me thinking about whether such an item would help me. But what does it help? Frankly, I am not bothered by 32 years of a mallet toe. Every once in awhile a new pair of shoes will cause a blister on top of it, but I wear very sensible shoes (I’m boring like that, Issue #2) and rarely have a problem. To read about mallet toes online, you’d think I ought to be hobbled and scheduling surgery.
Also, I hate feet (Issue #3). I think my brother used to torture me by putting his feet on me. I am forever grossed out by the image of my dad cutting his toenails on newspaper in the family room. My mom has this funky sideways toenail (which I may get someday too due to the same surgery I had on my toe) that just freaks me out. David can touch me with his feet sometimes, but only if I can’t see them nor feel the nails. And I better think they’re clean. It’s not necessarily better when he wears socks because I sense all the dirt and hair that must be on them from wandering the floors in our house or the day of sweat if they just exited work boots.
After reading about how treacherous mallet toes are, I wondered if the reason I only wear sensible, comfortable footwear is because my body knows if I picked heels and cute things I’d be in pain. See, I’m highly evolved, not lacking in fashion sense. Mallet toes are normally caused by bad footwear choices. Being lucky enough to be born with my toes all curled backwards against my feet and around each other and then wearing a bar between my shoes to straighten out legs and feet, I didn’t have the chance to screw up my toe via bad shoes. Mom says I was too crowded and I looked like I’d be crippled when I was born, but frankly I walk fine, ran track (poorly but I doubt it was related) and get around like anyone else. An orthopedist once found one leg longer than the other, but as long as I row starboard and not port, I’m not in pain. And I can even go port now and then.
Many foot things stand out in my life. The moon boots I had to wear because they were practical, per my Dad. And how relieved I was in 6th grade when my mom and I were in cahoots to buy new fashionable boots for me and stash them away as a Christmas gift so it would be too late to return them. The bread bags I had to wear in the moon boots because they leaked (I have met others subjected to this same punishment). The monster feet slippers with crashing sounds my high school roommate gave me. My frequent purchase of men’s shoes because my feet are too big (11) to find women’s shoes about 90% of the time. Once I found a pair of women’s size 10.5 hiking boots and they’re awesome. Nothing else fits as well and I’ve never seen that size again. Hence, the crying jags when I attempt to shoe shop. The jelly shoes that were popular when I was a kid and that I wasn’t allowed to have because they were bad for my feet (which led me to believe that all girls in jelly shoes had uncaring, ill-informed parents).
There you go. Feet and I are not friends. And if someone ever finds a very comfortable, semi-stylish, work-appropriate non-leather shoe in my size, please tell me. VERY comfortable is required. Lots of support. My feet hurt when I don’t wear tennies to work, and it’s hard to get away with those most days.
Strangely enough, two other local bloggers (Must Be Motherhood, Distracted by Something Shiny) talked about feet and shoes this week while I was drafting my post. Is it the time of year for robins to return (saw the first one yesterday) and feet topics?
