I’m on the record as saying I don’t like feet. I don’t like people who take their shoes off on planes, wiggling their toes and funking the recirculated air. Cheap rubber flip-flops gross me out. Long toenails give me the willies. Heck, I don’t even like my own feet.
So, of all the quirks and perversions the world has to offer, I understand foot fetishes the least. If you want to yodel while wearing leather and smacking each other with cooked spaghetti, go for it. I can see how that might even be sort of fun (hi, Dad!). But anything to do with feet? No way.
So, of all the quirks and perversions the world has to offer, I understand foot fetishes the least. If you want to yodel while wearing leather and smacking each other with cooked spaghetti, go for it. I can see how that might even be sort of fun (hi, Dad!). But anything to do with feet? No way.
At age 16, I was working part time in a gift shop in Chinn Library. Which is really one of the silliest marketing ideas ever - you don’t sell stuff at a venue where people are accustomed to getting things for free. It's like selling sex toys at the free clinic. (Unless you’re the Smithsonian, but really, if it’s in Woodbridge, it’s not at that level of cultural fabulosity.) I occasionally sold things, but mostly I just sort of sat there. Most of my “customers” were friends who were dropping off library books, plus their parents.
So when an actual customer dropped in, I would just about keel over from gratitude. They never bought anything, but I was happy for the company. One rainy Tuesday, a man in a sharp suit stopped in and began questioning me about my feet.
Do I get bunions?
How about blisters?
Do I like to put foodstuffs on my feet? Chocolate sauce? Jelly?
Do I like footrubs?
The great thing is that I had no idea what this man was getting at. Instead, I patiently responded to his every question. After a few minutes, he got bored and went away.
That evening, I mentioned the mysterious customer to my mom, who reacted with uncharacteristic calm. Her usual reactions ranged from paranoia to hysteria, including the time she claimed Clearasil was carcinogenic. However, she took the romantic attentions of a fetishist upon her naïve jailbait daughter as simply a part of life.
“Wow, you’re easy,” Mom said, with classic Aussie understatement.
Apparently, even fetishists dig a challenge.
PS – lest you think I’ve become any wiser in the intervening 15 years, I still fall for:
1. 'Gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary.
2. Hey, look! Somebody wrote "gullible" across the ceiling!
PPS - Happy Divorceaversary to me! Finalized June 6, 2006 - 666, in other words, lest you needed any proof that divorcees are doomed to damnation.
19 comments:
And here I was thinking it was the anniversary of D-Day. How short-sighted of me.
I can't believe that I wasn't supposed to buy my sex toys at a free clinic. And you're supposed to COOK the spaghetti?
I feel so stupid.
Hey, congrats! My divorce date wasn't memorable, but I got separated on July 4, Independence Day.
Mike, you know by now that if it relates to me, it's way more important. Guy Fawkes Day? Just for chumps and Brits - the rest of the universe is celebrating my birthday.
Gilahi, I imagine the uncooked spaghetti would be just that much naughtier.
Jamie, thanks! My separation date was, uh, just after Valentine's Day. Awesome.
Can you talk about the spaghetti again? But slower?
Some guy outside the Dunkin Donuts in Wheaton asked if he could touch my shoes. Um, no. And, ew.
Lacochran: Sure, I love to taaaaalk abouuuuuut spahhhhh-gettttt-iiiiii. It's saucy!
Oh, wait. You were kidding.
"Happy Divorceaversary to me"
I believe the date is correctly known as your "annivorcery." Happy Annivorcery, indeed.
I just celebrated my 8 year. The day it was final was nothing special, but the dinner party I hosted a week after was, in the words of Bill Withers, a shonuff shakem on down.
I live near the Chinn Center lol haha -
Cheap Rubber Flipflops skeeve me out as well. I hear ya about the taking off shoes on the airplane, I have observed a few people on the VRE do that as well. Icky.
Happy Divorceaversary to you as well - have a drink
Nice picture. Sousa always sounds better with the occasional Pbpbpth thrown in.
I'm rather boring. My fetish is women. Wait, does your mom still have an aussie accent? Grrrouf.
Hey, Shannon. (I point up) Look, a dead bird!
Refugee, "annivorcerary" is my new favorite word.
Zipcode, sometimes I see people on the Metro kick their shoes off, but then the entire train glares at them until the shoes come back on. It's fabulous.
Ibid, my mom's single, too! And what bird? Where? Can I see?
I have often thought about carrying a small can of lysol or febreeze and start spraying at them when I see people take their shoes off on the train.
Zipcode, a small can of pepper spray would be far more effective.
I have that already - that would be funny as well
Happy Annivorsary!! - Celebrate some way appropriate. I buy myself something nice each year. The first one I used the cash my evil twin made from selling all his crap and cashing in his life insurance. Personally I would never have done those things but she threatened to hurt me if I gave the money back to him so I tucked it it away for my one year celebration.
Zipcode, yes, I did just suggest that a law enforcement person commit assault. Anarchy!
Tina, I figured I'd celebrate by not really caring. Forget living well - apathy is the best revenge! :)
Guy Fawkes Day? Just for chumps and Brits - the rest of the universe is celebrating my birthday.
You say your birthday, Brits say Guy Fawkes Day - I still think of it as the date on which, in 1955, Doc Brown invented the flux capacitor!
I feel the same way about feet...ick. I resisted pedicures till I was in my mid 20s, and now get them out of necessity. But why is it that all that stuff with other people's feet skeeve me out, but I LOOK? Does that make me a masochist?
Mike, you know the flux capacitor was invented just as a way to help people remember my birthday.
Carrie, I think we all look at feet, even as the better angels of our natures implore us to look away.
I found your blog through its mention in today's Metro Express newspaper on the train. They mentioned your post about the bald eagle.
Anyway, I'm definitely bookmarking it. This foot entry was hilarious and so true.
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