Foot ball

One of the things that I find endlessly amusing is that my mother thinks I'm a metrosexual. This is evidently based on two pieces of evidence: I use hair gel, and I put lotion on my face after shaving. Otherwise, even if I really cared that much about my appearance, it should be readily apparent that I'm WAY too lazy to put time and effort into buying and using lots of products. Shaving, putting on deodorant, and brushing my hair and teeth take enough time as it is, and on weekends I try to skip the shaving part as much as possible. So, needless to say, I'm not the sort to pay attention to foot care.

For whatever reason, Gretchen thinks my feet are gross. That may well be true, but my attitude is basically: c'mon, they're FEET! Who really cares? (Actually, Gretchen does.) For years she's tried to gently suggest that I might benefit from a pedicure, but I really don't want anyone messing around with my feet. This has especially been true since learning that a friend of Gretchen's was cut badly by the cheese-slicer-type-thing they were using on her foot during a pedicure. The closest I ever came to a pedicure was a foot massage at the Singapore Airport (which was actually fantastic).

I guess the years of being browbeaten about my feet finally got to me, because there was a nice spa/salon at the resort and I figured what the heck...not only could I score some points with my wife, but maybe it would actually be relaxing or something. So, on our last full day there, I swallowed my pride and broke down and made an appointment. Here are my feet upon arrival; my apologies in advance if they frighten small children:



I sat in the vibrating chair with the warm foot bath and thought, well, this might not be so bad after all. But then she went to work. Having my toenails filed was uncomfortable enough; by the time she started poking around my nail beds my body was twisted into a ball and I was sweating through my shirt. I thought this was supposed to be relaxing!!! Oh sure, she did a little rubbing of my feet and calves, which was about the only relaxing part of the whole experience, but overall I just didn't find the experience to be terribly pleasant, let alone relaxing. This was the end result:



I didn't notice that much of a difference personally, but Gretchen thought there was a huge difference. Whatever. My guess is that this was probably my last pedicure. Now, if I could just get another one of those foot massages in the Singapore Airport...