Love thong
January 11th 2010 22:46
Thongs, for the non-Australians amongst you, are the cheapest and nastiest footwear on the planet. In Britain, they are known as flip-flops. The Americans are too sensible to have them at all.
When nature designed the human foot she, being omnipotent and all-seeing, also designed corns. As with wrinkles, grey hair and rising blood pressure, Mother Nature likes to remind us that we have been around for quite a while now. She can be a right bitch sometimes.
According to this professional advice on corns and calluses, "They are part of the body’s defence system to protect the underlying tissues. If the cause of pressure is not relieved, calluses can become painful."
What the advice leaves out is hardwood flooring. This design feature of many homes was created by interior designers who obviously had never had a sore foot. If they could experience for just five minutes the corn on my left foot, they would apologise for the hardwood flooring in my home and promise to look into alternatives involving latex.
This combination of wooden flooring and corns is probably why thongs were invented. Having arrived, however, they proved perfect footwear for Australian conditions. They are great for the beach, and many Australian pubs won't let you into the front bar if you aren't wearing thongs. Australian children generally wear nothing else on their feet until the day they get married (and for many that life-changing event just means a new pair of thongs).
In an un-Australian move, I stopped wearing thongs when I left childhood. My feet were still young and corn-free then, but I went to live first in Europe, where wearing thongs invites frost-bite, and then Asia, where thongs just increase the feeding ground for mosquitoes.
And then, after 30 or so thongless years, I got a corn and walking around my own home, on beautifully polished hardwood floors, became ugly.
The answer, I thought, was a pair of thongs. I was right, too, but what I hadn't factored in was the acclimatisation period. The rubber prong of the thong which fits between the wearer's first and second toes is a lot thicker than I remembered. At first, I could only wear them for a few minutes before the tender skin of my aging and complaining feet screamed, partly in pain and partly in memory of the ease with which everything was accomplished when we were children.
But now, after about two weeks of persistence, I can wear my new thongs comfortably, and walk around the house pang-free. Foot problem solved. I feel like a kid again.
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