You may not want to walk a mile in my shoes

I wrote this piece for the Mommybloggers site. People have been looking at my feet suspiciously ever since.

A few weeks ago I was invited to a breakfast hosted by our local school district.  I’m on a committee made up of parents and faculty that regularly meets with our local superintendent, and the breakfast was a way to thank us for our involvement and for giving up that one morning each month. I have to be up and dressed by 8am for these meetings, a remarkable feat for me that truly deserves a reward of free bacon, so I accepted the invitation. Besides, if I didn’t go they would have just spent the money on something frivolous, like a new textbook for a second grader or a door for the teacher’s bathroom.

The breakfast was a casual affair at a local restaurant, but I was glad I had gotten up a whole six minutes earlier than usual to primp since everyone there was dressed in business attire. After we were done eating they moved on to the very official awards ceremony, where they called each of us up individually and handed us a certificate and a small pin. (Does anyone ever wear these pins? I don’t think so. Maybe they should have some sort of national program where everyone sends in their service pins and they’re melted down and made into teeth for old people.)

They took pictures of us getting our awards, too, full-length ones. After that the breakfast was over and after talking to a group of people for awhile I headed out to my car.  While I was fumbling with my keys at my door I happened to look down and saw two of the most horrifying, scaly creatures I’d ever seen.

I’m talking of course, about my feet.

Any of you who read my blog have heard this all before. Forgetting to brush my hair, going to a meeting with a cereal bar stuck to my sleeve – nothing new.  But what I saw that day was a new low in my personal grooming, which is why I feel the abnormal need to tell you all about it.

I’m not just talking about un-pedicured feet.  I’m talking about scaly, dried, cracked horrors that I blindly slipped into sandals that morning and went out in public in.  Reptilian hooves that I padded up to the front of the room on, and then stood still while a photographer captured it all on film. During breakfast I think I even remember turning in my chair to talk to someone behind me and as I crossed my legs I brazenly bounced my foot up and down. It’s as if it was boasting, “Look at me! I’m hideous.”

I mentioned the incident to a friend and tried to make myself feel better by saying, “I’m sure no one was looking at my feet.” After she stopped laughing she said, “This is L.A., feet are an accessory.”  In fact, she had no sympathy whatsoever and scolded me for not getting a regular mani/pedi, comparing it to not washing down there. Excuse me? I’ll have you know I always wash down there; it’s the region far south of that equator that seems to have suffered a blow.

How did they get that bad?  I couldn’t tell you, except that I was right in the middle of a particularly busy time and my lowest priority was painting Cocoa Mist onto my toenails.  But when I came home, I repented.  I soaked, I buffed, I filed, I polished.  I even slathered them with lotion and wore thick socks to bed, which I think Vogue says is something you should never do if you want your husband to find you even remotely attractive. You think that would be the end of it, me and my now-shiny feet padding off into the warm sunset of a thousand pedicures. But no.

Now, I’ve become obsessed with looking at people’s feet. Maybe it’s to find someone else’s unsightly toes that could make me feel better about how mine looked that day.  Perhaps it’s like going to a friend’s house and sneaking a peek into her messy closet so that you don’t feel so bad about yours. Not that I’ve ever done that.

But I’m finding that we’re a city filled with beautiful feet. As my friend pointed out, the pedicurally challenged in L.A. are a rare find.  I’ve looked at the feet of other moms that I know, of strangers at the mall, of 80-year old grandmothers of friends. Perfectly appointed feet as far as the eye can see.  The only pair I found that came close to how mine looked that day belonged to a homeless woman’s at the airport, but even hers had been filed and topped off with a snazzy toe ring.

I’ve even heard of a procedure called a toe-tuck (I’m serious – go ahead and Google it) that claims to improve the appearance of your baby toe. Just in case, you know, it isn’t looking as young and firm as it used to.

But me? I’m afraid I’ve gone back to my old ways.  I’ll never let them slide so completely, but they’re far from beautiful.  I just looked down at them now and I can’t even figure out what color nail polish I had on last. In fact, is that nail polish or gravy?

I’m debating whether or not to re-join the school committee for the upcoming year.  My oldest daughter just started middle school and my mornings seem to be twice as hectic. Before I decide, I really need to find out what happened to those pictures they took at the breakfast that day.  I’d hate for the administrators to take a close look at them, notice my scary feet and refuse to give me a pin next year.

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Hairy

I was at a wedding shower luncheon recently and as usual when a bunch of women are gathered, the talk turned to underarm hair. How to get rid of it, how much we hate it, who invented it - like clockwork, right after salad and right before the main course we discussed these pressing issues. Then, one of the women commented that she had once seen a picture of Julia Roberts with a bushy armpit and remarked that, "It kind of made me gag." She said this with such drama, pausing and then closing her eyes and appearing to concentrate, like people do when they're either praying or passing gas.

A few of us came to Julia's defense, using the usual "It's European" argument or "Maybe her assistant forgot to shave her" theory. (Although, I noticed that everyone was careful not to raise their arms too high from that point on.) I though this was funny, mainly because this woman had such an intense reaction to Julia's hirsute pit, like the actress had gone out of her way to cause great agony and discomfort in her viewing audience. I imagined Julia waking up the morning that the photo was taken and saying to herself, 'Let me just put this right out there so that some poor soccer mom can choke on her caramel latte."

I sympathize with Julia - keeping hair under control is a bitch, and who can blame her if she didn't feel like getting out the razor that morning? I started thinking about how, with two teenage daughters, so much of our expense and energy is being poured into the styling, bleaching, removing, waxing and plucking of hair. A trip to the drug store usually results in a basket filled with no fewer than four kinds of shampoos and conditioner, an unreasonably large assortment of pins, ponytail holders and headbands and at least three different types of hair removal creams and/or devices. Just a tip: the one that resembles a lathe that you fill with napalm? Definitely not worth your $9.95, even with the added Bonus Ginsu Razor.

Absolutely true story: Recently Rigel and I went to an event, and were eagerly anticipating our night ahead of child-free revelry. Just as we were getting ready to take our first sips of our ginseng martinis his phone buzzed (mine was turned off) and it was a text from Kira that started with 'URGENT.' We were alarmed of course, until we saw the rest of it:

"PLEASE stop at Rite Aid on your way home and get CONDITIONER!!!! Pantene Pro-V Fine Hair Solutions Dry to Moisturized 12.8 oz. THANK YOU!!!!!!"

Can I just say there's no greater buzzkill than a text from your teenager with an unnecessarily detailed hair product order.

I recently took a hairy matter into my own hands and decided to pluck Kiyomi's eyebrows myself. I thought I did a pretty good job, although with all the screaming you would have thought I was shaping them with a blowtorch. So what if they didn't totally match and one of them gave her a permanent, slightly inquisitive look - that was twenty bucks saved that could be spent on an eyelash curler. I couldn't help wanting to show off my handiwork to my friends one day at a party, although perhaps dragging Kiyomi over and announcing, "I plucked these suckers myself!" may have not been the most sensitive thing I've ever done in my life, a fact that she let me know by giving me one of the fiercest glares I've ever seen (from under a perfectly shaped arch, I might add.)

Getting back to the woman at the party, I did jokingly ask her if she had ever been caught with her hair down, so to speak, and she said it was the reason she had taken to wearing long sleeves lately. As she said this she laughed and threw her head back, and I caught a glimpse of a nose hair protruding from her nostril. It kind of made me gag.

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