Getting back home after a strenuous day at the office, or a shopping spree perhaps; did it ever occur to you that those aching feet are probably the most neglected part of the human body?
Of course, they never used to be, at least not in days gone by, and it seems to me that as soon as horse transport took over from Shanks’s Pony, and motorized transport took over from the horse, feet have fallen flat by the wayside.
In biblical times, it was quite in order to greet your guests with a wash and brush- up which included a really nice foot bath.
Naturally, sweet smelling herbs were added to the water, and your hostess would pat them dry carefully with the equivalent of a Holiday Inn towel.
Could there be anything more relaxing before dinner, especially if you have worn goat-skin footwear over several kilometers of desert sand.
One wonders why this custom died?
To be quite truthful, and I know that most will agree with me, there’s nothing quite like immersing one’s feet into a bowl of warm water. While this treatment brings out the best in your well being, it also does marvels for corns, warts, bunions and carbuncles.
As a not too proud owner of a bunion on my right big toe, I am presently sitting here at my word processor with one half of my brain concentrating on my work, and the other half focussed on the appendage jutting from my toe joint.
For the want of something better to do, take a look at the feet that step by you during the course of the day, and you’ll find that more than half the entire population have bunions of one kind or another.
Could that painful throbbing growth that disfigures and deforms most feet be responsible for the sudden upsurge in our crime rate? I know I’d willingly kill for mine!
Or worse, lower the standard of production in and around industrialized South Africa? After all, they all do what they do standing up.
Napoleon had the right answer of course, and when asked why his troops looked so `foot loose and fancy free’ he glibly replied that his army marched on its stomach!
I took my bunion along to a local chiropodist for an appraisal. He didn’t beat about the bush, “My God,” he said. “That thing needs medical attention.”
I agreed, “It’s like a living Hell.” I said.
Of course, I didn’t dare tell him how long it had been there, and after a few probes that sent me flying through the roof, he mentioned that perhaps it would be better if I learned to live with it, rather than attempt costly surgery.
We have several days set aside for physical afflictions, there’s Red Nose Day, for instance. Why not a Red Bunion Day?
Ask any sufferer how they feel about that throbbing protuberance, and he or she will tell you in no uncertain terms, ….but watch their language.
Foot care should be an integral part of our every day health and hygiene programme, after all, no one would dream of facing the world without brushing their teeth night and morning!
True, those feet were made for walking, but if we don’t take care of them, we might end up a Nation of pedi-psychotics, with one half of our brain fixed firmly on our feet, while the other half is earning a living.
About this bunion of mine, my wife bless her, has come up with the answer.
She managed to cut a hole for it to fit neatly through the leather of my foot-ware, and I now walk around town with the ease of a mountain goat.
It’s just color matching my shoes to the nondescript bluey red veined bunion that is the bind!
