Foot Flash

The gorgeous lurking beauties. Caged, for now.

I realize the risk I take with this post. I know that with that title here, every foot fetishist in Russia will now make up my night time site analytics as they hope for what's been promised: a flash of foot. But suffering in silence wins no one any medals and this post may not be the right thing to do, but I need to do something, so anyway-

 

I am coming clean about an issue I refuse to believe I'm alone in.

 

My night time foot menopause. My feet are hotflashing and could ignite into flame at any given minute when under covers. 

 

If there's one thing I do well in my life, it's sleeping. Because of this, I plan my nights carefully. I remove my day's socks and give myself a relaxing foot rinse. I dry my feet carefully, and then as I slip into bed, my favorite time of my day, I put on my special night time socks. Because my feet always start out cold.

 

I turn on my reading lamp, fall headfirst into the pages of a good book (the only kind I read), then the sweet call of sleep leans in, come hither, and I hither. Eyes rolling around like marbles, eyelids heavy heavier heaviest and zzzzzzzzzz. Someone cast a spell on me and it's deep. 

 

Then I feel the fire from mini-people setting flares between my toes. OFF OFF OFF is all I can think. My eyes are closed but my legs are awake and I'm kicking and pulling my night socks off using one foot against the other and soon I hear, "What the heck is the matter with you?"

 

"My feet are hot! They're hot! Can't a person have hot feet?! Is there a law, is there???"

 

That in a nutshell, is life when you live with someone who foot flashes. Strategy and fighting for space, few petty things try a couple as both getting what they feel is their right: their fair share of a good night's sleep. It seems a petty affair, until one is getting what the other isn't. Hence the word choice here of  'fighting'. Foot flashers need support, not disdain.

 

Can you ignore the socks gathered together like they're talking about you at the bottom of the bed?

Can you hide your shock and incredulity and act like it's the most natural scene in the world to see a Sock Woodstock at the bottom of your bed on Saturday Morning Sheet Changing Time?

You will, if you love us.

There are 17,000 possible signs and symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause, which can begin as young as age 35, but foot hotflashes are not listed as one of them. Though a new study of the general population finds that 0 percent of people experience hot flashes of the foot, today I say, no more shame. I call no more Foot Flashing as a vehicle for jokes about someone who is a Gypsy Rose Lee wannabe who can only strip to their feet.

Foot Flashing is a condition for collaboration of community. A comprehensive response from those who love us forces me to ditch the benign language or skirt an issue, because elements are at stake. Like sleep for all.

 

Absurd? Not to the foot flashers.

Isolation? Only if we decide to live as shameful recluses come nightfall.

We have to know, are you with us or against us? This post does come on the heels (never sorry for puns, so no apology insert here) of a sheet changing conversation. My kids pulled the sheets off my bed during their required chores and WTH Mom'd all over me.

 

"What are all those?"

"Socks."

"From how many people??"

 

They are my children, and only children. I can't reveal my true suspicion for my hot feet. That the physical beauty of my feet is too mind blowing and this is why they edge on bursting into flame in any given second.

Hot night time feet. You can count on it every night. Does this push me to consider alternatives?

Surgery? Radiation? Removal? Not a chance. I need my bipeds.

Night time foot flashing behavior may look like unnecessary flailing to you. Leg slamming, bending at the waist, exasperated cries of OMG FEET SO HOT may make you call drama. But let me promise you, for the love of God if you let us pull of our socks then we'll all get our sleep.

Don't ridicule the morning remnants of our sweaty soled night.
Don't send us WedMD articles on how hot feet are a sign of kidney failure.
Help us, keep us dry and cool and comfortable.
Build us a little gnome tent for our feet out of, I don't know, popsicle sticks and microfiber dry-wick  hand towels.

And hurry up with that Mitchum foot strength invention: night edition.

 

In a soothing, temperature cooling aloe, if you could, please.

*all ideas stated here are patent pending so don't even try it.

 

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