Bizarre Fake Foot Experience No. 1

Currently I am working on two very big, detailed posts, both with lots and lots of words and photographs, one about driving a car and the other about Velcro®.  While creating these entries, I have also been procrastinating at other people's blogs, ogling their pets and otherwise making a nuisance of myself.

As part of my pursuit of these pastimes, I have been conversing at length with esteemed correspondent Ron Sullivan about my ongoing leg "pimping" project, specifically as it relates to my fake foot.  I won't go into all that right now, because that's a whole other gigantic post with lots of pictures, but I did want to share with you one bizarre little experience I have already related to her.  Through the miracle of cut-and-paste technology, I will probably even use many of the same words to do so.

If you live in northeastern North America, you are no doubt aware that until just a few days ago, it's been raining.  A lot.  Here I am slogging through a typical recent rainy day:

It rained this hard here for days, maybe weeks.  It rained so much that the amount of days it rained have run together in my mind.

Now, here's the thing:  When I take off my leg for the day, I don't necessarily take off whatever shoe it's wearing, because more often than not it's the same shoe I'm going to want to wear the next time I want to walk. So once I'd put my rubber boots on to go out into this big rain for the first time, I ended up leaving the right one on for quite some time afterward. 

When this rain finally receded, I took off my boot preparatory to putting on a real shoe and had a bit of a surprise.  The boot had something like an inch of standing water in it, the presence of which I'd never had the slightest inkling. My fake foot stank like athlete's foot and had odd purple blotches on it.

Here's the freaky, freaky part:  The foot had pruned.  Honestly.  Little puckers adorned portions of the heel and toes just like on a flesh foot left in the bath too long -- not much, but enough.

I may have screamed and dropped it.  I'm not sure.  There were no witnesses. 

As it happens, none of this was anything an hour of fresh air and sunlight couldn't fix (for me and the foot).  Still, it was very, very surprising.

*****

06-01-06:  Bizarre Experience Supplemental:

Okay, so in examining my foot a little further, in the light of a sunnier day, it appears that the following things are true:

1.  Not all the pruning was temporary (see photo left);

2.  Some of what I automatically assumed was pruning, possibly because of the situation combined with some kind of cognitive dissonance (or there's always senility), may actually be either (a) flawed molding of the rubber "cosmesis," or (b) damage I myself have inflicted upon it, or (c) signs of decay, quite possibly catalyzed by events such as occasionally being forced to sit in water for untold amounts of time.

3.  I still don't know what the floriform purple blotches were, but you know, looking more closely at this "cosmesis," even with them gone, it appears that the rubber no longer retains its virginal jaundice.  See photo below.

I do believe that this thing is made of an at least semi-organic (though not organically grown) substance such as latex.  As such, it would make sense to me, a non-chemist, that it might be able absorb water and also release it, and this, if true, would explain a certain amount of pruning on the toes and lower heel which I no longer see.  However, I now think most of what I saw was stuff that had already been there and was simply thrown into relief because of an honest accumulation of dirt, dye transfers from the inside of my boot, and also mold and fungus growth which died off under pressure of soap and sunlight.

Unfortunately, my camera is loaded with slow black-and-white film right now, and my boyfriend's digital camera was unavailable at the time, and even if it had been available, it is a cheap one that, as you can see, sometimes displays some very Holga-esque properties, so I'm not sure how accurately it would have recorded my experience.  Thus you will just have to take my word for it that this happened.  Or you could go with the assumption that I am losing/have lost my mind.  Whatever.

Comments

[Ron Sullivan]

I am absolutely fascinated by the idea that both factory-installed and aftermarket feet can host fungi. That's one hell of a determined lifeform, isn't it?

The floriform purple blotches, I suppose, will have to be incorporated into the tattooing. The effect is oddly like those rag-rolled wall finishes that show in in deeeziner mags.

[Sara]

Ron, you can see that I did not exaggerate when I described this foot as insultingly fake looking. I agree that the streaking adds a sort of "deeeziner" texture, like when you buy pre-battered blue jeans or get your walls painted in some kind of "rustic" finish. And yes, this will add a dimension to whatever decorative scheme I end up with. But you can see why I really want to decorate it. It just can't stay the way it is.

As for the fungus/mold question, you know I owned these boots back when I had both my original feet. I wore them all the time in rain and mud, every year, for years. Now, it never occurred to me that athlete's foot could survive its host inside a black rubber boot, but this is my suspicion. It's a weird kind of ghost, or offspring.

It's also kind of ironic. Once I played a little game with some other amputated women online, the "list some of the weird advantages of being an amputee" game. Examples: 1) Less to shave, if you're a shaver. 2) Fewer toenails to clip. 3) Half the athlete's foot.

Uh...I guess 3) wasn't true after all.

Freaky, freaky, freaky!!!

And now I have to go outside and do the Icky Icky Icky dance. It's finally sunny, and the sun is scheduled to leave again soon, so what better day to shake off the yuck?

I will think of you while I am pruning the hedge out front (you know, after dancing). Cheers!