forms of feet phobia.

We won’t touch our own toes. Some form of feet phobia. When the cold sets in we thrust them so close to the fire we nearly catch flame to wool socks. Don’t ask us about it, we get disgruntled saying it all out loud. But truthfully, we steal each other’s socks. And we make a rude fuss over other’s toes. Won’t admit it, but we do.

One evening we spent fourteen minutes scrutinizing Miss Won’t-Say-Her-Name’s toes. She might as well have been entirely made of toes for how we put the judgment on her. And Mr. Can’t-Mention-Him’s been a nasty topic of conversation for months now. But that’s all hush-hush. Not a one of us would confess to how we feel about his toes, except to all besides him.

Thing is, we’re more comfortable critiquing the toes of others because we feel stupid about our own. Stupid, secretive, or just plain in-denial.  That is where the cold comes in—reminds us we’ve got toes at all. And the bother they are, but we keep them warm anyway.

Cross-our-heart truth, we know we should be fine to deal with our own toes. But the facts don’t help. We’d rather cover them up—pull on other people’s socks and then talk about So-and-So’s dreadful toes. Not ours.

It’s the feet phobia is all. Most everyone’s got it, so we don’t worry much.