July 18, 2010

Day 189 - Rub Vasoline on my Feet

Date: July 14th, 2010

I come from a family that loves knowing the little tricks and solutions to problems that most people miss.  Got a sty?  Here's this goop from Poland; rub it on your eye.  Got a hangover?  Yellow Gatorade works better than red Gatorade.  They even bought a watering can that needed to be plugged in at one point.  That's right.  Someone, somewhere, invented a watering can that required an electric charge and my parents got it.  Turns out it didn't work.  Water leaked onto the electrical part.  So, you know, that's probably a design flaw.

Turns out, about half their little tricks are stunningly simple and super effective.  The other half have, well, design flaws.  With that in mind, my skepticism when my mom told me about a particular cure might be a bit more understandable.  See, like a lot of people, my feet have built up callouses.  There's really no attractive way to deal with that most of the time.  Stores have all sorts of modified razors, shavers and something that looks a bit like a new-age cheese grater, designed to fix up our feet.
For those classy callouses.

Apparently though, there's a cure that doesn't involve slicing off part of my feet.  According to my mom, if you rub Vaseline on your feet, it will slowly remoisturize,  causing the callouses to go away.  Its just weird enough of a home cure that I couldn't resist the urge to try it.  Needless to say, it was kind of squiggy.  That's a technical term.  It means oogy.

It was about eight o'clock when I initially rubbed the Vaseline on my feet.  I put them up on a towel and watched some TV for a couple hours.  Now.  I often sit with my feet up and watch TV so it wasn't a particularly out-of-the-ordinary activity.  After about two hours, I could no longer feel the sensation of the Vaseline on my feet and I basically forgot it was there.  The ooginess gone and my show having ended, I decided it was time to go to bed for the night.

I need to take a minute to tell you about my place in Lansing.  Its way too hot.  Its tiny.  There are decent amenities, this I will grant.  But there is a touch of class.  You see, my place in Lansing has hardwood floors.  So, when I stood up to go to bed, with the world's most famous lubricant on my feet, I did not stay vertical for very long.  I planted both feet, pushed off the chair I was sitting in and immediately felt them slide backwards out from under me.  You've heard the term faceplant?  Usually it is an exaggeration.  Not this time.  Oh the perils of callous maintenance.

As for effectiveness though, the Vaseline treatment is top notch.  It genuinely makes them softer and less, you know, callousy.  And, having learned my lesson, I'm not headed face-first at the floor again any time soon.

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