Feet

As with all things, the difference between shoe buying practices when comparing men to women are night and day. In order to understand these differences, we must first examine for a moment just how each gender perceives their own feet. You'll never catch a man drawing attention to his feet like a woman does. You will never catch a man painting his toenails hot pink, slipping on a toe ring, or adorning his ankle with jewelry. That's because men mostly have ugly feet and we treat them like a beaten up, used Jeep. It's utilitarian in style and all we need to do is wash them once per day and once per year buy them a new set of tires, or in this case, shoes. Ten ply Michelins will last a long time but so will Nikes' if you treat them with a little respect. And it should be pointed out in seriousness AND in jest that if your Nike's wear hard on the inside they also might need a front-end alinement. This is to say you probably should have had braces on your legs like Forrest Gump. Men also have much uglier medical foot afflictions than females. While it is sometimes believed that hammer toe is a construction site accident, that is a misnomer. It's actually a genetic (and often ugly) medical condition.

Ever since I was in my teens I had been plagued with the dreaded ingrown toenail. This is basically where instead of the shaft of the nail growing straight like it is supposed to it instead curls under and begins to stab the flesh like a rouge railroad spike. When I first moved to Tulsa in my early twenties, I was without insurance coverage of any kind, so I was forced to get creative with the problem. One night in the dark ages (better known to my generation as the late eighties), I was examining a toenail I had let go just a little too long and I noticed it was ceremoniously growing out the end of my big toe. Even in saying it now, it makes my body sweat all over just thinking about it. It was at that moment I knew the time was at hand for me to deal with the problem head on. So, I went to the corner liquor store and bought the cheapest 5th of whisky I could get my hands on and proceeded to numb myself like they do in John Wayne films. Looking back on it now, it probably wasn't the best choice because trying to perform that kind of home surgery three sheets to the wind isn't a great idea. It was however my only recourse at the time. Just remember, reality is everything. At this point I could feel my body begin to take on the effects of the corn-squeezing's. This is known affectionately (at least in this instance) as the deadening process. To some degree it worked well, however I failed to factor in when you are half in the bag everything becomes harder whether you can still feel the pain or not. The truth was I was about to perform an outpatient procedure in my living room without a board certification, and to top it off I was drunk. When the time came, and I felt like I was numb enough I proceed to fish my best pair of needle nose pliers (Bass Masters Classic) and a Mag Light out of the kitchen drawer and go to work. I grabbed the end of the nail, gave a concerted yank and it was at that point where my memory of the incident gets a little fuzzy because I passed smooth out. There is nothing more humbling than a medical home procedure gone wrong than waking up at midnight face down in the mashed potato portion of a Hungary Man Dinner. Luckily while I was passed out on the floor I didn't bleed out. Why I thought it was necessary to do this while I was eating dinner is a question I cannot answer, but hey I was young!

In my early thirties I had reached my saturation point with the pain of my toenails and went to seek the council of a foot specialist. He took one look at them and said, "That's easy, we'll just remove them." The very thought of it even now makes me shudder and wince with pain. At this point in the game, I didn't even know that removing them was an option. My return question was "What keeps them from growing back?" His answer, "Well, when I remove the nail, I'll also remove the nail matrix." Try saying that silently to yourself without squirming. And I should mention to anyone who is thinking seriously about having such a procedure done that it will make your feet look a little odd. A big toe without a nail on it appears to be a little mutated. Folks, let me tell you, it pays to seek the advice of a specialist, the only regret I have is that I didn't do it sooner. It's like my feet are on a permanent vacation.