Pampering your piggies can leave you footloose and fancy free
I wear a size 9 shoe, sometimes 9½. That’s it. No downsizing for vanity’s sake. No scrunching of the toes to squeeze into a marked-down size 8.
And then there is my best friend, Lydia “Elastifoot” Kachigian. Lyd was born a size 8, but that has never affected her shoe purchases. The woman would amputate all five little piggies to slide into a smaller shoe if the price was right.
Thank God it has never come to this. But over the years, it’s gotten pretty darned close.
During a good shoe sale, for instance, I have watched Lydia’s foot grow two sizes to fill a size 10. Conversely, I once witnessed her jam her size 8 feet into a size 7 shoe and not even flinch.
“Sandals obviously work better for this, Shell,” she has told me more than once. “The heels can hang over and, as long as the toe cleavage isn’t too pronounced.”
Toe cleavage, like breast cleavage, is a force to be reckoned with. In feet, toe cleavage is what happens when toes protrude from an open-toed shoe. Too much of a crevice showing between the big toe and second toe? Well, honey, you’re hanging out.
For as long as I’ve known her, Lydia has been able to fold her toes up like a card table and then unfold them at will. And yet her toes are beautiful, perfectly formed. No hammer toes and only a sprinkling of bunions. Now let me introduce you to my feet – the pampered ones my best friend makes fun of.
The Great Toe on my left foot looks like it has been broken. (It hasn’t.) And all my other toes are hinged, like the toes of an animal that hangs upside down from trees.
My toes may be ugly but they have personality.
“The same way I talk with my hands, I could probably talk with my feet,” I told Lydia while we were sitting together in her SUV. I kicked off my shoes and motioned to her with my big toe. We both burst out laughing.
“You’re awfully proud of them, considering how stinky they are,” she said.
It wasn’t always that way.
When I was in the fifth grade, I had the biggest feet in my class. I wanted petite feet like my friend Marilyn. So I scrunched up my toes when the lady at the shoe store measured my feet. At age 10, I vainly wore too-small shoes, during a growth spurt.
That is why my toes look like Quasimodo’s. That is also why I pamper them now.
I can’t make up for the past, but I can step forward in shoes that fit. These days, I give my toes plenty of wiggle room. I’m not toe-tally perfect but I am footloose and fancy free.
And you can’t put a price tag on that.
This story was originally published October 1, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
