Extreme Makeover: Foot Edition

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For as long as I can remember my feet have always smelled like the cat’s ass. Do you have a cat, or I should ask, did you have a cat, but then it died and you were too busy to do anything with the cat’s dead body for a few months in the summer? That’s the smell. My feet smell like a feline carcass sizzling under the Tuscan sun. While there’s technically nothing medically or orthopedically wrong with them, they’re sweaty and nasty and awful, and it’s pretty much been this way since I was a kid. Even in this pedestrian-prohibitive, vehicle-crowded, must-drive-everywhere city where I live,  I bravely maintain a rich full active daily ambulatory lifestyle. In short, I walk a lot, certainly not as much as the average Nepalese peasant teen, but much more than the average car-bound Angeleno. (Which I learned is the term for residents of Los Angeles, as well as the name of the Olive Garden busboy who fingered me in high school.) I also rack up considerable time wearing high heel shoes, which many women will agree, incurs a level of chronic pain akin to dipping your toes in a woodchipper. Basically, it’s fucking Hammertime on my feet, so I’ve finally begun to give myself the proper care for all the torture and indignities my jacked-up hooves have suffered over the years. 

What about a pedicure? NO. Not even my most bitter enemy should have to endure the Cronenbergian medical-horror sideshow exhibition permanently on display below my cankles. Certainly not at the rate most nail salon employees are paid. The whole situation is awkward—gross for them, shameful for me, and concerning for any passersby. The only person who should be touching my feet is the surgeon in Turkey who will be removing my toes and replacing them with a fun set of bluetooth LED tire-tread mini sound systems. So, I prefer to have my foot spa treatment in-house and do it myself. 

Now listen, if you’re not a freak and you respect and tip your pedicure staff generously, by all means, as you were. But if you’re like me, or you’re a secret cross-dressing father of 5 living in Des Moines named Eugene, all you need is a couple of  inexpensive items and in just a few steps you’ll have delightfully fuckable feet that don’t smell like who-dunnit. 

For just under 10 dollars, or the price of one banana, a pair of exfoliating foot booties can dramatically uncover your true soft baby feet hiding underneath the 2 inch thick layer of calloused gristle. So, what I like to do is take a quick shower, pat my feet dry and make sure all the doors and windows are locked because once the booties are secured, they severely limit your ability to flee from danger. I like anything that requires me to sit in one place and not move. It helps keep me grounded. 

Peel open the packet, slide your hooves inside the booties, and fasten at the ankle, or in my case, cankle. Then let nature take its course, which is chemicals eroding the flesh of your body, for approximately 30 minutes. Then the real found-footage docu-horror miniseries gets underway. It depends on how much dead shit you’re hoarding in those haggard stumps, but for me, the full bloom of the Kafkaesque metamorphosis reaches its peak around day 3, and having forgotten that I’d even done the treatment, I screamed when a wheelbarrow full of dead skin flew out of my socks at the end of the night. Over the course of the week, I would gently but firmly exfoliate with a loofah in the shower to minimize the nightly mountain of molt. It’s like the Ring– in seven days, your ugly feet will die, but with an added bonus, they will be replaced by those of Naomi Watts.

A daily scrub with a loofah will clear the dead skin, but for some of us, we will need to call in the cavalry. If you recall just a few paragraphs ago, I mentioned the Olive Garden. Well you’re probably wondering what the Olive Garden, or should I say authentic Italian dining, has to do with taking care of your nasty feet. If you recall the last time you ordered spaghetti Bolognese the waiter probably offered some freshly grated Parmesan cheese to go on that dish. Personally I always decline the cheese because I do not like cheese but there’s something about that grater that always piqued my interest. Enter the Foot Rasp.

Would you like cheese with that?

Naturally my fascination with kitchen utensils eventually found its way to my feet, and when I discovered this heavy duty hack-saw for the severely calloused, I cried out in joy. This is a very simple tool, and you’ll be amazed at how easy it works. Unlike ped-eggs, or little foot sanders, this thing is literally a fucking cheese grater. So, you saw away until you feel something and then as soon as you do (it will be pain) you stop. Too easy. My first scrape took so long that I started to wonder if there was any living flesh at all left on my heels. I shredded off a mountain of detritus from each heel—so much that I had to stuff my shoes with tissues the next day because they went down half a size. Of course I sent Trixie some photos of the mountain of dead flesh with no explanation and she replied, “Why are we friends?” 

My actual foot cheese.

Then it’s just simple maintenance after that. I keep a rasp in the shower for my heels, and I do the bootie routine every couple of months. I also talk to my feet, in several different languages, which helps to regenerate new cells and eliminate toxins from the chemicals in my socks. So have fun with this, and remember: the journey of a single step starts with a thousand feet, so happy trails, and Buon Appetito!