mood: snarky | drinking: water, water, water
I hate flip flops.
This is not a style statement or matter of footwear etiquette or anything like that. This is pure and simple personal loathing.
What did these innocent and sparkly summer sandals ever do to me, you want to know? I’ll tell you.
For the last three + months, they have become a permanent part of my anatomy. And I’m sick of them. I want to take them off my feet and burn them in a blazing, melty fire.
I feel just as strongly about sparking the demise of these rubber thongs as I did about burning my nappy blue P.E. culottes when I graduated from the Baptist high school. (And that was a threat I gleefully carried through on.)
‘Round about April, my feet and ankles started puffing up like puffer fish. Cankles had nothing on me. But the swelling was sporadic. It only happened when I sat for long periods (like at work). So I could still squeeze my tootsies into my boots, my Mary Janes, my favorite Tzubos.
And then May came along and the only time I ever see my ankles anymore is when I first wake up, stretch my legs up in the air and say, “Oh, there you are!”
By the time I’m at the sink brushing away the morning breath, my feet have begun to resemble rising bread dough waiting to be popped into the oven.
Before you hurl your wive’s tales and remedies at me, let me say that my ob/gyn knows all about the fat feet, and I’m fine. I don’t have pre-eclampsia or some other hysterical pregnancy problem. I’m just one of those lucky bitches whose feet feel like increasing their circumference for months at a time.
Which brings us back to the flip flops. They’re all I can wear anymore, and I can’t stand it. Even though I’ve purchased myself a few new pairs of the bright and shiny variety. Even though I make sure I maintain my pedicure so my toes don’t have to be embarrassed. Every time I walk down the hall and hear the “flip…flop…flip…” that accompanies my steps, I start looking around for some sort of flame and accelerant.
But this is just one of the things they don’t tell you about until it’s too late.
Everyone has a different childbearing experience, it’s true. So what happens to me probably won’t happen to you. All the same, it would have been great if someone had warned me that…
1. I’d become a shit driver. Call it pregnancy brain or whatever you want, but I noticed recently that whenever we both headed toward the car, Boy would take the keys. Usually we mix it up a bit, so finally I asked, “Do you want me to drive?”
“Hell, no!” he replied. “Haven’t you noticed, ever since you got pregnant, you’re a crazy driver?!”
I hadn’t noticed, actually. But after he said that I realized it was true. Just last week I reversed in the middle of a street to grab a parking spot that was opening up, completely oblivious (until horns started blaring) to the fact that there was a whole line of cars behind me and no room to reverse.
2. My ribs would feel like an alien chest burster was punching its way out. The feeling hasn’t remained constant [insert phew], but there were a few weeks there when I was sure that either my spleen was being slowly pancaked up against my ribs or I might be re-enacting the scene from Alien at the dinner table.
The doctor said it was probably just my rib cage stretching to accomodate my growing uterus. And I was all, “Wait, my RIB CAGE has to get bigger, too?”
3. I would begin to make sound effects for every movement. It’s true. Getting out of a chair? “Euf!” Getting into the car? “Wuf!” Rolling over in bed? “Hurk-eh-uh-hunf!”
And you don’t even want to know what I sound like once I’ve reached the top of a flight of stairs. Boy and I went on a (very slow, shuffling, octagenarian-style) walk the other day and I looked at him and said, “Remember when I could run 13 miles?”
Good times.
Perhaps they don’t tell you all of this ahead of time because if you knew, you’d never conceive. But, as everyone and their brother keeps telling me, “It will all be worth in when you hold that baby in your arms.”
And although it irks me that the people who love to say this the most are people who’ve never popped out a kid, I know it’s true.
So until then, I’ll just keep shuffling along, planning the fiery demise of my footwear and dreaming of the day when my old ankles come back to stay.
-Lo, who doesn’t even want to hear about how your feet went up a shoe size after you gave birth. Don’t give me nightmares!
LaDonnaWitmer 