~ Free Pedicure ~

I’ve told you before how leathery my feet callouses from hell are.   I could walk on hot coals….no wait!…much worse!  I could walk on LEGOs!  Seriously!

The dead skin from my feet just doesn’t seem to slough off.  (Who wants me now??!)

It’s been a problem ever since I birthed my Varmint and Critter.   And after my callouses get so thick it seems I am wearing high heels, I go ahead and fork over the money for a pedicure.   I have never done it myself because I can’t bend over that long, and breathe.  I’d pass out from lack of oxygen in a skinny minute.   …or, er…a chubby minute.

But we’re trying to save money, so I didn’t want to spend the $40.00 on a pedicure this month and I decided if I could just learn to hold my breath, I could do it myself.   I bought the necessary tools….the most important of which is an actual knife blade!  It’s a german-made blade made exclusively for scraping off callouses.   You simply soak your feet, and then rub this thing across the callouses, and off the dead skin comes!

There is also a pedi-egg…which looks remarkably like a cheese grater.  But I passed that up in favor of the razor blade.

And there is a pumice rock, which, with the exception of building my arm muscles, does nothing but irritate the snot out of me.

And of course cuticle clippers, which are remarkably reminiscent of the claws of the evil crabs that violently pinch me every stinkin’ time I go in the ocean.

I put a couple of watermelon-scented (Watermelon?  Sure!  Why not?  Beats the smell of toe cheese!) salt tablets in the foot soaking tub, with a couple of gallons of warm water, and sat back with my tootsies swimming in the bath, feeling good about all the money we were saving.

When that was done, I began the shaving process.  It was amazing.  I must have scraped a pound of dead, calloused flesh off of the heel of my foot.  I felt so light and free!  I felt so young!  I felt so….

….much pain!!! AGUGUGUGUGUGUGUGUGH!

In one swift, foul swoop, I had cut an eighth of an inch off of the top of my second toe.

I was bleeding everywhere.  Literally small puddles of blood were gathering on the wood of Pop-Pop’s back deck.

My Captain swiftly grabbed a bunch of paper napkins, and applied pressure, but the blood kept flowing. …for a good 15 minutes.

When the flow abated, we took a tube of Super Glue and sealed the wound.

It hurt so much I INVENTED new cuss words.

Painful, yes, but in the end, I’ve learned some important lessons here:

1) Watermelon Salt Tablets DO smell better than toe cheese.

2) I have no business applying sharp knife blades anywhere on my body for any reason.  I’m not even sure I should be given anything but a spoon with which to eat meals.

3) 3″ deep callouses are prettier than scabby, half-amputated toes.

4) Sand and sea-salt-water are NOT a girl’s best friend when that girl has an open, bloody wound.

5) $40.00 for a pedicure three or four times a year is maybe not so expensive after all.

6) You actually DO need your second toe to properly swagger.

Go figure.

And that, friends, is free advice!  My gift to you!

love,

Mama Boe