I have lovely but strange feet. I sometimes get compliments. (And yes, I find that a bit strange.) They’re big, toes long and prehensile and flexible (and I crack them frequently), and because of a lifetime of Doc Martins, Birks and flip-flops, they have maintained their natural shape - something like a dive fin, only marginally smaller and with higher arches.
My toes are shaped kind of like this (only without the red blotch, and my nails are in better shape) : imagine my dismay to be told by the website that it is ‘cosmetically unappealling’!
Ah well, it’s small potatoes after some of the other nasty things people have said about them.
They are unusual, but they’re mine. Feet are great.
I like my feet, but they are somewhat odd looking. The pinky toe of each foot overlaps onto the 4th toe, and the 4th toe has a sort of grove on top to allow for that, and is turned so that it leans outward, too.
And this summer I have sandal tan [Chacos, not Birkenstocks… but same idea].
My goodness, cowgirl, your toes curl that much naturally? Does that affect how your shoes fit? People with toes who cross over each other, does that make your shoes hurt?
My toes are nearly perfectly straight and flat, and I happen to like them. Unlike pretty much every other part of my feet, they are aesthetically pleasing and don’t hurt. Plus, they snap, crackle, and pop, I can cross them, drum them, and all that good stuff. I should try to see if I can write with them.
In all modesty, I have great looking feet. They’re very pink and supple so you’d think they’re feminine, but they’re just hairy enough and quite wide nullifying that aspect.
They’re somewhat small, but EEE wide. A high arch. The toes taper nicely from the Big Toe to the Pinky. Clean, pink, symmetric nails.
I take them out of my shoes at work, and immediately of out my shoes when I get home. I like to be able to stretch them and flex them and I don’t think being in a shoe is a natural state for them. In anyone’s house, I take my shoes off at the door, and believe it should be done in ALL houses.
quirk: I subconciously put my pinky toe on top of the toe next to it and let it rest there. I can do it just with toe action on the left foot. I need to nudge it there wiht something else on the right foot. My wife does it too. When we realized it, we both thought that we were the only ones in the world who did it.
I can make that same snapping sound on the ground. I’ve done it in several potentially-creepy situations (cabin in the woods at night, etc), and would say “Shhh! You guys hear that?!?!?” and they’d all be hearing this random knocking sound, apparently from under the floor, yet no one was moving. A fun way to freak people out.
I have what I call “feet of indestructibility”: large, not very pretty, but damn near bombproof. The other type is “feet of beauty”, which look nice but can’t stand up to heavy use. (I borrowed the terms from A Soldier of the Great War.) My proper size is an 11 EEEE, which means I used to have to get 12s to have any chance of the shoe fitting. Lately I’ve been plunking down for the the more expensive, better fitting shoes, but I think it’s worth it.
My feet are pretty flat naturally, but I have an enourmous muscle built up where most people have arches. It makes for an odd, bulging footprint if I’m barefoot but it works out OK.
My toes are quite mighty. A friend of mine didn’t believe me, so I pinched his sneaker clad foot with my toes. Hard.
Make it four of us freaks. Mine are joined for about 1/2 to 2/3 of the length on my right foot and just slightly on my left. My mom’s the same, and my grandfather has his joined for most of the length on both feet. My dad’s theory is that it’s inbreeding on that side of the family (seriously - I’ve seen my grandfather’s family tree, and it is truly frightening), so would any of you happen to have Mennonite background?
I’ve been told I have very attractively shaped feet, which I think is nice, considering how poorly I usually take care of them.
Like another poster, I have very heavily calloused, scaly heels. If I leave them alone, the skin will eventually crack, bleed, get really sore and eventually heal up. So, instead, I end up picking at them and pulling off dead skin. Sometimes, when I get really ambitious, I’ll take out my Swiss army knife and either cut off the callouses or use the saw blade to debride the dead skin off my feet. I suspect all this has something to do with my diagnosis of PCOS, insulin resistance, and hyperinsulemia, as many other women on the PCOS support board I go to have mentioned the same problem.
On the weird side, my pinky toes have a triangular cross-section. I get that from my mom. The top is one side, then the side up against toe #4 is another side, and then there’s a seam at the bottom of my toe, and the last side is the one on the outside of my pinky toe. They didn’t used to be that way. They just kind of grew into it.
I’ve got fairly odd feet. I wear a size 11 AAA, and my feet are bent in the middle. If I look straight down on them, I can see that they are shaped like parentheses. Finding shoes that fit is a nightmare.
I never ever ever go barefoot. I hate it. I wear shoes from when I get up in the morning to when I go to bed. The only times I’ll take off shoes is for bed or to bathe. Dirt and dust are not permitted on my feet! Or grass! shudder Or gasp sand. The horror.
I don’t know if there’s inbreeding in my family. I wouldn’t be surprised. The joined toes run in my mom’s family. My sister has them too, as well as several of my mom’s siblings and many of my cousins. When new babies are born, I demand to see their feet regularly, to check for joining. The worst example I have seen so far is my cousin Tyler. I don’t know which of my mom’s parents passed the trait on. I can’t remember ever looking at their feet.
My second toe is longer than my first, to the point where I can’t wear some rounded-toe or squared-toe footwear, because my Long Freak Toe will bump against the end even if the shoe otherwise fits perfectly.
My Long Freak Toe is also slightly permanently bent, probably from being crammed into too many unaccommodating shoes before I realised what was going on.
The toe next to my pinky toe on my left foot was broken and has healed crookedly, leaning to the left.
My heels are thickly callused, yet somehow smooth. I can’t scratch an itch on my heel because I can’t penetrate the thick skin!
I have little to no arch.
But my crowning foot achievement is that I can give The Toe. Yes, I can stick up my middle toe.
Thanks for this topic, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one with crazy feet!
I can spread my toes out so that they separate widely, except for the joined toes. However, I cannot use toe separators, which seem to come with every pedicure kit ever made; I don’t seem to really need the separators though. When I’m not deliberately spreading my feet out, my toes are crammed together tightly. Comes from wearing shoes from a very early age, I think. In addition to looking at the feet of my baby cousins to check for joined toes, I also try to get their parents to keep shoes off them as much as possible. I want their little feet to have the opportunity to grow wide and vast. Like mine! I have big feet like my dad, and many people in my mom’s family tease me since their feet are far more dainty. (I’m taller than they are, and I have curly hair, so bleh to them!) I also have an exception to not wanting people’s feet to touch me. The feet of babies and children are all right, since they are soft and not all creepy like adult feet.
Google is my friend - without further ado, I give you the excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s The Broom of the System - a favorite book. This excerpt came immediately to mind when I saw this thread:
The soles of my feet are as red as a ripe tomato, heel to toe. The soles are also kind of scaly and sometimes the skins cracks open…if I don’t apply lotion. The reso my feet are normal caucasion color.
