update from abroad: toe separators

Greetings from an internet cafe in the heart of a thriving European capital city.

* * *

Okay, so going through the security check in New York, I had my one-gallon ziplock bag with the tiny toothpastes and mouthwashes all ready. In it I also had two toe separators.

How does this relate to the dating life of a sexagenarian, you wonder?

Ha. Hang in there, and I’ll shock you with — the night I nearly murdered a date. Inadvertently.

* * *

First you need to know what a toe separator is. They are sometimes called toe ’spreaders,’ and the kind I use is gel. The computer in this cafe won’t let me copy URLs, so I’ll type in a URL that shows you pictures of my kind of toe separator:
www.feetrelief.com/feetrelief/gel_toe_spreader.html
The kind I wear looks most like the middle-size one in that picture. I’ve been wearing it between the big toe and the next one on my left foot for about the past five years, ever since my toes on that foot began to get very crooked because of a bunion.

No date has ever noticed this — this — what to call it? I hesitate to use the term ‘deformity,’ but it really looks odd. And ugly. At any rate, Rolly never noticed the bunion, nor did he notice the toe separator, which I removed before sex, as he removed his hearing-aid.

* * *

Yes, you young folk out there, that’s what’s ahead of you in middle-aged sex: no diaphragm or spunge needed, no more pills, but he removes his hearing-aid and you remove your toe-separator.

* * *

Back to JFK airport. So anyway, the two toe separators were in the ziplock bag with the toothpastes, because they’re made of gel, and that’s one of the Forbidden Substances: I might, you know, try to blow up an airplane with my toe separator.

As a small protest against the disastrous and horrible war in Iraq, I carried another toe separator with me, not in the required ziplock bag but in a plastic make-up container in my pocketbook as part of my carry-on luggage.

This is verboten by the U. S. government. Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr. go to jail for their convictions; I carry a hidden toe separator.

* * *
Nothing happened. The TSA (Transportation Safety or Security or whatever it is Authority) didn’t find it. No bells rang.

* * *
But it crossed my mind that this — my conference trip abroad — would be a good time to tell you the story of how I nearly murdered a date, because I’m far away from NYC and all the men in my life, and there’s no reason to connect the story with any of them.

I hasten to add that this story is not about Performer.

* * *

I’ll call the near-murder-victim T (T for toe-man).

Okay, so I was in bed with T, though not entirely undressed. The Complete Conjugal Act was not on the books for that night.

He was entirely undressed, however.

Before I knew what was happening, in the heat of his passion, T was at the foot of the bed passionately and energetically sucking my right foot.

* * *

Oh oh.

And then — OMG! he’s going to move on to the left foot!! Jesus Christ he could swallow the toe separator!! and choke on it and die! And then OMG what will I tell the police?

He was sucking my foot and he swallowed my toe separator and choked and died! I tried to save him. I performed the Heimlich manoeuver several times, but the gel was too gooey and stuck in his esophagus and wouldn’t come out! He died!

* * *

I was once told I have a ‘disasterizing imagination.’ That could be. But this seemed a likely calamity.

And then — could I be accused of murder? might I not be implicated somehow? Was there perhaps in New York a law against not telling your date you wear a toe separator?

* * *

Need I add, all these terrifying implications of T’s passionate gesture went through my brain in a single second.

I sat up quickly, reached down to my left foot, removed the toe-separator, and placed it in one of my shoes at the side of the bed. I placed it rather than tossing it overboard because I didn’t want to lose it, nor did I want T to find it later and wonder what part of my body it was used on.

* * *

T looked up from his moment of passion, removed his mouth from my right foot, and asked, ‘What was that? what were you doing?’

‘Taking my toe separator out,’ I answered.

* * *

At that point he switched to the left foot, whose deformity appeared to cause him no alarm — nor did he seem to be experiencing any distaste. He sucked away. Happily.

* * *

So — so — that’s all that happened.

And this story is one of many reasons I’m glad to be alive, I’m glad I’ve lived to be 60, I’m glad I’ve had a lively and bizarre dating life, I’m glad blogs exist so I can ’share,’ and for the first time ever I’m glad to have a bunion, which occasioned this amazing moment.

Most of all, of course, I’m glad I didn’t murder a date. Inadvertently.

All round I consider myself very lucky.

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