And about my feet -- jcarolek

In my recent post I bemoaned the size of my forehead, which is gigantic. As I finished off that entry, it occurred to me that the other physical oddity which kept me from joining the ranks of the beautiful, and the popular, was the size of my feet.

Yes, indeedy….I had tiny ones. So you see, while I was blessed with the gift of a huge brain, evidenced by that gigantic forehead, I was unable to stand on my own two feet! Well, not really, but they were really small. Now I could have understood this had I come from small-footed parents, but NOOOO – we’re talking serious shoe sizes there! And, once again, my siblings did not share my affliction. Normal to large would characterize their pedestals.

Running barefoot in the summer was such a joy, and yet, even as a child, everyone commented on what “tiny” feet I had. My siblings teased me, but my mother, good mom that she was, took me aside and explained that small feet were a sought after commodity, considered a sign of beauty in women.

OK, I’d already bought into the gigantic forehead deal, and that was keeping me on my "toes" intellectually, but now I was supposed to live up to some beauty thing? Well, I flat out refused to believe this tale. I was not going to have to live up to any more of my miserable body oddities!

I suspect the truth about my small feet lies in a very simple thing my mother did when I was two months old. She had knit me some lovely little booties. I loved to kick them off. She ran a piece of elastic through each and, voila! I did not kick them off. All day I cried. All day she tried to determine what was ailing me. When she undressed me for my bath that night, she called to my father in alarm. My feet were huge. The elastic, combined with the booties which did not allow my feet to breathe, had resulted in my feet swelling to the point she could not get the booties off. They had to cut them off. And, my feet were purple. Now, this was just another example of unintended consequences, but, to this day, I have the scars from that elastic on both ankles. Naturally, as I grew, so did my ankles, and today, instead of a thick rope of scar tissue, the scars look like a dotted line…as if my feet had been stitched on.

SO…..my theory is…either, my mother was trying her own method of “binding the feet,” or, they made up this story to cover the fact that I was also born without feet and had to have a spare pair surgically attached.

Either way, I was screwed! Now, I will simply end this sordid saga with this very honest statement. In Jr. High School…while other girls were stuffing their bras…I was buying size 6 shoes and stuffing the toes!!!