offloading 2

The long promised Part 2 of the offloading series has arrived. It's been so long that you probably don't even remember Part 1, which was about the mutilation of a cheap pair of Korean flip-flops. I finally went ahead and slaughtered my prize sow, so here's my American pair of sandals with the big-toe part cut away with the help of several kitchen knives and a lot of caution (because cutting through thick rubber while keeping your fingers is no easy trick):

I was initially worried that I hadn't cut away enough of the sole, but once I put the sandal on, I saw that the toe wound was, in fact, floating in space while the rest of the sole was still nicely supported. And the whole setup felt good, too. I think I have my new outdoor footwear. I'll be ditching my New Balances, I think, until my toe is completely healed.* I might even do a distance walk as a test. The only real risk with sandals, aside from painful straps, is pebbles. Then again, on my 25K-plus walks, I get pebbles in my regular walking shoes.

Below is a shot of the toe hole from the bottom. You also get a nice cross-section of the sandal's rubber material. I used three different knives to saw away the big-toe chunk. The sandal's material is actually a layered composite, so when I was cutting through it, some parts cut away easily while others required a bit of muscle and patience. As I got closer to cutting away the entire block of rubber, I kept thinking of the Mad Max villain Toecutter. The same actor (Hugh Keays-Burne) went on to play Immortan Joe in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Below is a simple overview of the now-mangled (but utilitarian) sandal:

Lastly, here's a shot of the liberated chunk of rubber:

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby,

Edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley

Through the middle of my skull

I'll be wearing these sandals with pride when I appear for my 9:40 a.m. appointment at D&F Hospital this coming Thursday. Sporting the sandals will be a silent rebuke since the docs there couldn't be bothered to offer me any diabetic footwear. Fuckers.

I'm also going to try an experimental distance walk with these sandals, but I don't expect it to go well. When I'd first bought these sandals years ago, I did a long walk, and they worked out perfectly, lulling me into believing they were just as good as walking shoes. But a second walk proved to be uncomfortable as the friction from the straps became too annoying to ignore. Tonight, however, I took the sandals for a short test walk: I emptied out some trash (which means taking the 'vator down to the B1 level and visiting the large, underground area where we sort and throw out our trash), then I walked up six flights of stairs before taking the elevator the rest of the way back to the 14th floor where I live. This sort of short walk usually results in blood spots as the blood soaks through my bandage, however thick and gauzy the bandage might be. Not this time. With the big toe hanging free and safe from any pressure, there was no blood at all, as you see in the above photo. I think I might be good for walks lasting 60-90 minutes, but no longer than that. I'll also see whether I can find some sort of sponge or even faux-leather padding to make my sandals' straps less abrasive.

And while the following update doesn't belong in this entry, I can say that I'll be doing another week of staircase training up to the sixth floor, and the following week, I'll graduate to walking up to the 14th floor, a bit more than halfway up the entire staircase. My goal for the fall is to get back up to going twice up the staircase. Three times (which I've done) is badass, but twice is good enough for cardio purposes.

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*I know you dad-jokesters are sad that I missed a "toetally" pun when I wrote "completely healed." That was deliberate. And I may have missed a generic foot joke as well: "completely heeled." I don't generally engage in dad-joke humor even though I have farted out the occasional lame pun. It's the sort of humor my own dad trafficked in, and once I was a teen, I couldn't stand it, and the man simply wouldn't—let—up. 

That's another problem with many older men: their social cluelessness. They really see themselves as the local wit and not the village idiot. And what is it about age and maleness that makes a man want to engage in lame humor? Do these men think it's charming for the ladies? Ooh-hoo! they titter politely... rolling their eyes once the gents are out of view. Guys, some advice: be stoic and growly like Clint Eastwood—modest and quiet, but always ready to kick ass if needed. That's actually much more charming to the ladies.