Coral snake.
I almost stepped on a giant Reticulated Python once, but saw it in time.
Funny that this thread should appear.
Two days ago, I… I stepped on… on…
a chickadee.
Either it was already hurt and couldn’t move out of my way, or it was fling very low to the ground. I didn’t put my weight on it or anything, and it flew off the the side and landed, looking mostly okay but breathing very heavily and drooping. It flew a little way off a few minutes later (while I sat there freaking out).
I’m a bad person.
Dog poop barefoot. Check. Cat puke barefoot. Check.
Human poop. I was walking through a park at night, by a river. Thought I’d make my way down a small hill towards it. Squish! Oh God, the smell of it! Some drunk asshole decided to take a dump right there on the ground.
Luckily, I was wearing shoes, which I immediately discarded. No amount of cleaning could erase the memory of what I’d stepped in (besides, they were getting old anyway).
Well,
My sister once stepped on a pidgeon while walking through the zoo. She says it went CRUNCH!!
A very dead, decapitated and disemboweled rabbit. In the library. In the dark, barefoot. Lukewarm. Completely unexpected. We have cats - need more be said? (After turning on the light, I discovered that Mr. Bunny was smeared all over the damn room.) Much worse than any of the various piles of poop and vomit the critters have left for me to squash.
I, too, have put nails, etc., through my feet and picked up large chunks (like 1.5 sq in) of glass in my feet. I got so used to that as a kid (refused to wear shoes if at all possible) that it didn’t even really bother me much anymore. I’ve still got a numb spot in one foot from that piece of glass, though.
I feel bad. Yes, I’ve stepped in/on my share of manure, shit, slugs, dried up evicerated mice, and nails, but I can’t think that any of it was “worst.” I mean, nothing stands out other than in the moment; obviously none of it was fun, but none of seems really icky, either. Maybe I’m too phlegmantic (which reminds me, I guess I’ve stepped in phlegm, too, but it just doesn’t seem that horrible).
Really, Shoshana? I’m amazed. I’ll take the pain of glass and nails (both of which I’ve done, repeatedly) over slug any day of the week. That definitely stands out for me.
Jelly that can STING, no less!
I’ve stepped in dog puke/pee/poo - all are nasty, but wash off.
When I was a wee lad, I was running, and didn’t see the pot roast bone that our dog had been chewing on. It came to a rough point, and that point was up. Yeowch.
Years later, I stepped on a sharp bit of metal that happened to be shaped like a cross between a letter “C” and a bow tie - it was curved and had pointy prongs/barbs at the ends. Buried a roughly square-inch section of it into my heel, and the barbs made removal even more painful.
A kitten.
Human puke when the flu went through our dorms like a Mongolian death plague. I had shoes on.
Not me, but done by someone I was walking with through the streets of NYC–and not yet mentioned in this thread:
glue trap with dead mouse attached
There were about 6 of us, and when the Poor Girl realized what she’d stepped on–and now had attached to her shoe, she shrieked. Another friend grabbed me by the arm and buried her face in my shoulder, as she dragged me rapidly forward so that she wouldn’t have to see the dead mouse.
What was really funny was watching the discussion about how to remove the glue trap from the shoe-- as no one wanted to touch it.
As I recall, one of the guys kicked the trap with his shoe, and was lucky enough not to end up with the glue trap attached to his shoe.
Not as gross feeling as some folks experiences, nor as painful as others, but so far unique, and pretty not fun.
When I was 7 0r 8 years old, I was walking on the beach when my foot found someone’s discarded grill charcoal. Third degree burns which hurt for days.
Compared to that, I’ll step in cat puke or dog poop gladly.
Glass.
The blood ruined a perfectly good pair of sandles.
Four cats. Try not doing this at least a few times a year. Barefoot. In the dark.
Having four cats, too, obviously bumps up the number of paws and tails I’ve stepped on. I must admit though, the ear-splitting yowl cats emit when you do this is a remarkable deterrent.
I’ve stepped on perpendicular toothpicks (the round kind) too, along with thumbtacks, carpet staples, small glass shards and wood splinters. I’m fortunate to have some pretty quick reflexes and harbor enough mild paranoia about exactly these sort of things that I always react before it’s able to do too much damage. Except for the wood splinters and glass. Wood splinters hurt and they’re a pain in the ass to extract. Glass is the worst though. They make clean cuts that bleed profusely and extraction under any but the brightest of lighting conditions is nearly impossible because you usually can’t see the damn thing.
I hate stepping on living things though – beyond pets, I hate stepping on little wee beasties too. Bugs are nasty – I’ll bunch up a wad of paper towel and grab them with that. Walking down the path by my building to the mall during or after a rain means dodging a minefield of earthworms. Long ones. Ew. (I don’t have a problem with worms themselves – they don’t gross me out or anything – I just don’t like stepping on them.)
An up-turned three pin plug.
Pain. Lots of pain.
winces even now at the memory
a dead rat, left in the yard by the cat, with bare feet. its’ head crunched under my foot.
Lessee. I once stepped on a bee, not directly on it so that it was immobilized and squashed, but only slightly, so that it was pissed off and stung me on the sole of my foot. Right in the center, under the arch, IIRC. Damn, that hurt. It burned and itched for days, but I couldn’t really scratch it because it was right in the most ticklish part of my foot. I think I stopped going barefoot in the summer after that.
Nail - check
Glass - check - stitches and numbness
The most recent thing I stepped on was my wife’s sturdy earing lying on the carpet stud side up. It really hurt because it is not sharp, but still went right in.
Stepping on bugs doesn’t bother me, unless if they hurt.
I trod on a piece of wood with a protruding rusty nail when I was about four or five years old; it went right through my foot and came out the top, but oddly I didn’t feel a thing - I only noticed because the blood made my flip-flop sandals slippery, and, well, there was this bit of wood inexplicably stuck to my foot.
But I think the worst was the remains of a dead sheep. Several dead sheep.
We went to Spain on holiday this year and while we were out walking, we came across a derelict farm, so we had a bit of a nose around then I stood on something crunchy - it was a mummified sheep’s head, I stepped back and trod on some other piece of rotten sheep-jerky skeleton. My son had walked towards one of the buildings and was just about to step up on what appeared to be a large grey boulder, in order to see in the window. For once, he responded instantly to my shouted command to stop. It wasn’t a boulder, but the corpse of a sheep that had inflated from decomposition gases, then dried up in the inflated state. It was lying there like a huge withered grey balloon, leering at us from its empty eye sockets, face shriveled up to bare the teeth.
If he’d stepped on it, it would certainly have just caved in and he would have been standing up to above the knee in crunchy dead sheep.
I don’t know why but this made me giggle like an idiot.
I literally screamed just reading this.
I’ve stepped on legos, cats, dogs (the funny thing about the rottie is that if you almost step on, he yelps in abject terror. If you do step on, no response. It’s hilarious), various other children’s toys, a screw in purple socks (I was wearing the socks…), glass and people (sorry bro).
So far the kiddie toys are the most painful for bare feet.