I might be uptight but that doesn’t mean bunions aren’t contagious or that you can’t die from them

I’m knee deep into a small DIY blog re-design which means that my ankles are completely submerged in puddles of stress sweat, swear words and, pretty soon, bricks because honest to God, I am going to shit a few if Firefox and Internet Explorer don’t get their acts together and play nice nice.

Yesterday, I thought I’d give myself a break by having lunch with Heather and then getting my eyebrows threaded because having a total stranger yank out my facial hair by the roots is so much more relaxing than yelling WHY THE HELL IS THIS BLUE AND WHY THE HELL IS IT WAY OVER THERE, YOU STINKIN’ SON OF A BITCH at my monitor every three minutes. If things don’t improve soon, I’ll be getting my nether regions done by Friday. Nothing says I HATE WEB DESIGN more than a Brazilian threading.

So after lunch, Heather and I headed over to a local Indian salon and when we walked in, I immediately froze because the first thing we noticed was a bunch of shoes in the entrance way and they didn’t have any feet in them.

My hope was that everyone had been abducted by aliens who had sucked them right out of their shoes and into their spaceship because that was preferable to the possibility that clients had removed their shoes in the name of etiquette and were walking around barefoot, exposing the rest of the world to a potential lethal dose of athlete’s foot.

But then Heather found a sign that read “Please remove your shoes before entering” which might as well have read “Please come in and walk all over some bubonic plague and E.coli” and I gave the go ahead to my intestines to do that thing they do where they get all bunched up and play python with my lungs.

I don’t do barefoot unless I’m in Pedicureland where my feet are pampered and sanitized or I’m in in the privacy of my own home where my feet are neither pampered nor sanitized but at least in my own home, most of the hair and dead skin cells and various other DNA that I’m walking on either fell off my own body or that of my husband and children so it’s hereditary, familial filth which probably won’t cause me to grow an extra set of toes out of my ankles. I can’t say the same about stranger filth. And besides, I always have the option to vacuum a path from the kitchen to the family room or rip up the carpet entirely if I’m feeling particularly phobic.

But I can’t drag my Dyson into a salon without some sort of explanation and I don’t know how to say “Since I have no way of knowing if you’re covered in fungus or if you’ve been traipsing through feces, would you mind standing on that end table over there whilst I make this floor safe for the rest of humanity?” without sounding bitchy.

This is the reason why I would sooner lick a public toilet than walk barefoot in a hotel room. It’s also the reason why I don’t do pools or water parks without water shoes. The mere thought of walking barefoot on a dirty moist floor is enough to make me gag up last week’s pork chops. Twice. While I try very hard not to impart my freaky crazy upon my kids so that they can grow up normally, it takes every ounce of restraint I have at a swim meet not to shout ZOE! MAKE SURE YOU BLEACH YOUR FEET AFTER THE 200 FLY, OK? PROMISE ME RIGHT NOW THAT YOU’LL REMEMBER. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? WANT ME TO WRITE IT ON YOUR ARM? I usually try to distract myself by watching the divers between heats but once, I witnessed a diver emerge from the pool and wipe herself down from head to toe with her swim chamois that she picked up off the floor and my skin crawled right off my body, down the bleachers and out the door for some air. For the remainder of the meet, I just watched her through my skinless eyes, waiting for her face to explode into one big plantar wart.

Back at the salon, I stood my ground and firmly stated that no way was I going to remove my shoes and spontaneously die and instead of backing me up and painting HELL NO TO THE BARE TOE signs and picketing the salon with me, Heather shrugged and flung off her shoes and entered the salon, leaving me no choice but to follow her lead because the alternative of going back home to referee more Firefox and Explorer smackdowns with bushy eyebrows was almost as bad as dying from someone else’s toenail fungus.

So I entered and tried really hard to levitate myself and not touch the floor but gravity hates me so I hobbled around on the outsides of my feet to diminish the surface contact area and then I practically jumped into the threading chair and honestly, I think I’ve become so adept at camouflaging my own bizarreness that I don’t think Heather even knew I had issues. Unless she was just being polite and didn’t want to holler I’LL TAKE BATSHIT CRAZY FOR $800, ALEX and make a scene.

Back at home, I now have tamed eyebrows, sterilized feet and a wonky IE navigation menu with a big ol’ honkin’ CSS bug up its stubborn ass.

I fear commando nether regions are imminent.

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