Crotches and Feet by K. McGuirk

I was chatting with a new friend at the café. I’d been sitting alone with a crossword when she came by and sat herself down. I’d heard about her before I met her.

She said: “There was a moment when I couldn’t tell you what a foot was.” I laughed. What?

She said: “I don’t really understand. The word ‘foot’ had drifted free of feet somehow, and try as I might, I couldn’t get it attached. In fact, I didn’t even know where it should be attached.”

Foot foot foot foot foot.

I said, “Oh, It’s like the kids’ game. We always said, carrot carrot carrot carrot till ‘carrot’ was just a sound.” I added: “Kids know something fun the grown-ups forget. The world hasn’t yet been fully assembled: anything might be anything.”

She said: “It wasn’t arbitrary, though. I was studying for my exam the next day in podology as part of my advanced training to be an esthetician, so my brain was tired and had essentially been saying foot foot foot all day long.”

I said, “I hope the next day you knew what a foot was, or you had a name for that five-toed thing at the end of a leg.”

“I did, and my business grew in that direction. I had a business with five employees for a few years. Crotches and Feet. That wasn’t the name (ha!) but that’s basically what I did. We did.” She liked to be funny.

I recalled that another friend of mine, after a bout of chemotherapy, had troubles with her feet and was referred to the esthetician for a treatment. Old people came to her with their outrageous feet. She had no fear, no disgust.

One evening, the esthetician went on, a fresh young employee came to her and said, “This man wants me to massage his crotch.” She went directly in and shouted, “Out!” He had no trouble understanding what she meant. They both knew the meaning of words in action.

We sat quietly for a bit. Then she went and ordered a coffee for take out. I went back to my puzzling.

K. McGuirk lives somewhere between Toronto and Detroit.