My brother thinks feet are ugly long-palmed hands with freakishly deformed, useless fingers, but I love them. Not in a weird, I-want-to-watch-you-have-your-feet-spanked-with-a-pickle-while-an-old-man-sucks-mayonnaise-off-your-toes kind of way, but in a I-can’t-stop-myself-from-staring-whenever-I-see-people’s-feet kind of way. I happen to have been born into a family of beautiful footed people. I love my own feet and consider them one of my most attractive features. I was careful to marry a man with beautiful feet, to ensure that I would have babies with beautiful feet. Sometimes, when I’m thinking about my husband’s ex-girlfriends and ex-wives, I wonder, “Did she have pretty feet? I bet her feet weren’t as pretty as mine.” Whenever I meet someone with unfortunate looking feet, I feel a pang of sadness for them. What a terrible thing, I think, to go through life with ugly feet.

In the spring when it’s warm out and people begin wearing sandals and such, I find myself staring at feet in the subway. I stare at the feet around me as I walk the city streets. I can’t help myself. I find that most of the people who wear foot-exposing shoes are taking pretty good care of their feet and while I appreciate the well-pedicured feet, what I really love are the freak-feet. Freak-feet are like train-wrecks. You don’t want to look, BUT YOU HAVE TO.

I thrill when I discover the woman who thinks it’s pretty to grow her toenails out three inches and paint them gold. And then there are those people who pay their pedicurist to french manicure their toes, which, in my opinion, just makes them look as if they have really long toenails. True, they are clean looking long toenails, but still long toenails. I can’t figure out why someone would pay to have their toenails cut and filed and then painted to look as if they had not been cut and filed. I cannot comprehend this but I can’t stop looking at it either. And then, there are my favorites: Monkey Feet.

There seem to be a lot of Monkey Footed people running around Earth. In case you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, Monkey Feet are very long feet with VERY long curling toes. Toes that are more like short fingers than actual toes. Often, the big toe is an inch or so from the second toe (which is always longer than the big toe) and looks as if it is opposable, as if it is really a thumb on the foot. And that long second toe could surely be used for grabbing and grasping. Even when Monkey Feet are well-pedicured, they are wonderfully freakish. They look as if they were built specifically for climbing trees, which is odd because as human beings we really don’t have occasion to climb trees with our feet. I suppose this is a trait left over from evolution? One last link to our cousins, the beautiful and graceful chimpanzees?

I have fantasies about these feet. If they were mine, I would not stuff them into pointy shoes and go about life as any regular person. If they were mine, I would make much better use of them than that. I would keep them uncovered. I would run about bare-footed and wild. I would climb trees and dangle from boughs. I would grow my toenails out three inches, but not for vanity’s sake. No, no. For necessity. Survival. I would need three-inch toenails for faster climbing and for warding off predators. With these magnificent feet I would break away from society and become one with Mother Earth. I would live amongst the beasts and hunt for my food, using my powerful feet as tools, my toenails as weapons. I would become Jungle Girl. I would dance in the moonlight, naked, howling at the stars, more alive than ever before. I would be truly free.

But alas, I was not born with Monkey Feet. My little dainty feet and snub toes have decided my fate. There will be no wild jungle for me. No frolicking in moonlit fields. No naked dancing. Instead, I have been fated to a life time of pedicures and pointy shoes. But at least my feet are pretty.

Originally posted March 2, 2009