Toe to Toe

If you want to be a female soccer player, say goodbye to nice toenails. Or, just toenails. Mine are frequently missing, or black or purple (but not purple in a good way, not beautifully painted purple, perhaps with little sparkly diamonds and things, but hideously encrusted with old blood, from underneath). I’ve heard that you can buy press-on toenails but I haven’t tried them since I can’t imagine the glue sticks for long when you are a constant taker of corner kicks, and before too long those little things would just be rattling around inside my socks, and that might affect my game. Instead, during flip-flop season, you’ll often see me with athletic tape stretched across a toe or two. It’s to spare you from having to look. You’re welcome.

It’s not just the toes either. Your whole foot take a beating in soccer. When I get a pedicure, they have to break out the razor blade tool to scrape the gunk off my feet, and then they often have to change the razor blade again. My feet are so awful that I am using up razor blades! It’s a miracle they don’t turn me away, although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the women in the spa playing rock paper scissors to see who loses and has to take me on.

And once I bought new cleats all because of the salesperson’s attitude towards my feet: He didn’t say a word as he helped me ease my gnarly, barnacled feet into new cleats again and again. I went in the store because I heard the type of cleats I usually wear was on sale for $25, and I ended up coming out of there with these special $80 kangaroo leather ones. (For the record, I was hoping they would make me hop a little higher when I go for a header, but sadly, they do not.) I figure the $55 extra I spent was like a fair tip for the guy for what he had to endure below my ankles.

I’m telling you this because I had a pedicure today. I had a gift certificate I had to use up before this weekend, and I’ve got to tell you, being a girl feels good. Firstly, by some kind of miraculous coincidence, I have all my toenails right now! And then my poor pedicurist scraped so much stuff off my feet that I’m at least an inch shorter than when I came in. They have a little towel warmer there too, and when she put that hot towel on my freshly scrubbed feet, I considered coming back, well, every day. And my toes are beautiful. MY toes. I almost feel guilty going to soccer tomorrow and bashing them around. Almost.

Here is a photo for posterity: