April Fool’s

I’m not a fan of April Fool’s Day. I don’t like pranks and am always sure to let people know if I suspect they have shenanigans in mind. A particular birthday comes to mind where a friend decided to prank me incessantly even after I expressed my displeasure about it. That was the end for me. But I wasn’t always this way.

One of the more bizarre aspects of my childhood (which is saying something, because there are many to choose from) was that my mom decided to teach us how to use our toes to grasp and manipulate objects. She started when we were babies, holding toys against our fingers and our toes for us to practice gripping. She had read about doing this in a book. We kind of took the skill and ran with it 😉

We never were nearly as dextrous with our feet as with our hands, but being able to do a few things with our toes was actually useful sometimes. I still don’t have to stop and bend down to pick things up when I’m vacuuming–I can just grab whatever small item is in my way with my toes and hang onto it till I’m close to wherever I want to put it. I used to be able to write fairly legibly and could even draw rudimentary pictures with my toes. Oh right, and I used to perform scenes from Shakespeare with my feet puppet theatre-style, much to the delight of my family (I did say that my childhood was bizarre). I wrote a paper about it all in college called “POddity.” See what I did there? Pod + Oddity. Okay, moving on.

I haven’t always used my powers for the greater good, though. I used to primarily use it to mess with people.

In High School, I was sitting in a small study room with a guy I knew. He was doing homework and I was pretending to read. I always wore shoes I could easily slip on and off with no socks for just such an opportunity. He had his back to the only door and no one came in or out while we were studying. I slipped my feet from my shoes, stretched them across the floor, and untied his shoes…then tied his laces to his chair legs. The whole time, I would periodically turn pages in my book, so as not to raise his suspicions.

When he stood to go to the bathroom, his chair went with him. He looked at me like I was an alien and said, “How did you do that?!”

How indeed.

I gave him my most innocent look and said, “Do what?” We had a good laugh and went on with our day.

I’ve fallen out of practice and can’t do much more than pick up bulky things with my toes now. If I try to write or anything more involved, my metatarsals cramp up! Looking back, it’s just another blip in an eccentric life that has fed my imagination. But those memories… I’m definitely going to hold onto them. Get it? Hold? *ahem*

Happy April Fool’s Day.