Footie

 Not about football, but about feet. No one wants to talk about feet, but they are the most used spot on our bodies, the body outside, at least. Not sure if it's because their location is rather distant, and seen seldom other than fleetingly, that we mostly ignore them. In the days when I didn't mind spending a small fortune on pedis and manis, I loved the attention my feet received. The dear lady who made her living at tending gently and thoroughly, my feet, spent almost an hour pampering them. When the bill for tending to nails and toes didn't somehow fit my budget I gave up the mani and pedi parts of my life. Now, doing the job myself, I quite understand the cost of such treatments. Just getting down there is work enough and lately,  I am seriously thinking of reopening my monthly date with my dear lady of the pedi kind. Many feet are squeezed into the five minute shoe for parties, heels that defy gravity, shoe toes that pinch and finally, at are last comfortably stuffed into favorite slippers or worn ancient sneakers. What puzzles me about the whole foot matter, is the mystique of feet. When I was a teen, my friends bragged very politely about THE shoe store in the city where they bought their shoes. While I had rich friends whose parents didn't wince when the matter of new shoes arose at the dinner table, mine did wince widely, and told me to save up my babysitting funds if I wanted to buy the kinds of shoes my friends had. Food came before foot wear at our house. It's where I learned that the fancy shoe store dumped their left overs for the annual, much-sought-after sale that even the rich secretly attended. I was there every sale with my babysitting money clutched in hand. My rich friends had lots of shoes, but my closet held one pair of regular shoes that sat next to last year's pair along with the cheap fake version of the latest sneakers. As to fancy shoes for dances, a regular pair had to make do. None of the present teen generation knows what this is all about. We didn't do credit cards when I was a kid. What came home in Mom and Dad's pay was all that there was, and we were lucky to own our house which is a rarity these days. Then, house and food came before fashion. Today is different. Why do we ignore our feet? Most people have some part of their foot or feet that they deem to be hidden from view.  I inherited a bump on my foot that plagued my aunt who had hers removed at great discomfort, but she didn't mind. I do, and simply hide my bump as best I can. I have been know to take a strong pair of scissors and neatly and hopefully hidden, do things to my shoes that invisibly to others, make them more comfortable. Also, like my mid-European body that is  wider, so are my feet to match. My elegant rich friends, who, for some reason have impossibly narrow feet, prove that the richer you are, the more skinny are your feet. I wear a very small size but wide, and their feet are as long as skis. It is as though, their feet have somehow been pulled to great lengths while others are left to be their comfy little wide selves. Of course, I make no outward comparisons but I do pamper myself with that thought. As I age, I don't worry about shoes or that only the most expensive kinds are narrow. I buy what fits with an ahhhh. It keeps me in a good mood.