Toes and Tires

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• August 20, 2024

The toe next to the big toe on my left foot was just healing from an unknown injury. And just when it was better, I dropped a waterpik directly on it. It hit right at the corner, directly on the toe right under the nail. Cursing, I hopped from the bathroom to the bed, and then rocked back and forth like Peter Griffin when he hurts his knee.

“Not my toe,” I cried, “my precious, sexy toe!” I tried to shake my money maker (my toe) and it hurt. Writing jokes is a lot harder than selling pictures of your feet on the internet, but to be honest, I’m ashamed of both 90% the jokes I write AND 90% of all pictures taken of me (all of them, even regular ones, not just foot ones). I iced my toe before shoving it into my shoe and wincing, like Cinderella’s step sister who chopped off her toes to fit into the petite glass slipper.

My car’s sneaker had its own problem. The low air in my front tire I thought was due to a nail (and probably was), but the bubble forming was the bigger problem. When I bought my 2021 Jeep in 2022, I got the best Goodyear run flat tires. Run flat tires are popular on higher end cars like BMW’s. Of course, unbeknownst to me at the time, one of these tires runs about $360 (roughly the price of a one way ticket to Hawaii). You can drive with a knife in it, but bubbles in tires are a blow out risk. And warranties don’t cover bubbles because they’re considered the driver’s fault, likely from hitting potholes. When asked if I hit potholes, I replied, “I live in Queens. It’s probably flatter on the moon.”

Truthfully, I didn’t even know I had run flat tires. I mean, I must have known when I bought the car, but who remembers such things (my dad would remember)? My last car, a small Hyundai Accent, had the worst and weakest tires known to anyone. Those tires got bubbles constantly, and no tire place ever carried them so I had to keep ordering them. It was a real pain in my small Coppertone white ass. It’s good to know with these tires that if one of my enemies stabs them, I can still run them over.

My dad is borderline obsessed with tires. It’s a man thing, I guess. Though many would argue I have a plethora of boyish qualities, a love of tires is not one of them. My dad would often revel and brag about a new set of tires and polish them so they’d shine like onyx, bragging about the little hairs on the edge, proving their lack of miles. “Cool,” I’d say, with no hint in my voice that is was cool. But father’s should be listened to about certain advice, like, never cheap out on tires. You want a good set of tires. Like a good set of running shoes, otherwise you might get bunions or other feet problems.

The majority of the shoes I wear are unisex. Vans are my favorite (the shoes not the vehicles, though I was a big fan of our suburban van growing up and never did get why certain moms are opposed to driving vans because they don’t want to look like a mom, when they are, in fact, mothers). You’ll only find me in heels if I’m attending a wedding or something fancy. Truthfully, I don’t know why women choose to wear heels as a regular slipper. They’re the shoe equivalent to the shitty tires on my Hyundai.

When it comes to things women do that men find unattractive, the top three things on the list tend to be— one; fake duck lips, two; fake eye lashes, three; fake (especially long) nails. Some men do seem to really like a woman in heels. Maybe it’s because it’s harder for women to run away from them.

In the city, nowadays, most young women wear flats with dresses. A trend I’m fond of because I worry about women in the city and want them to be able to flee if they’re in danger. I guess heels look “hot” but I am not that desperate to impress a guy, especially because it’s really quite easy to impress men, physically at least. I can tell you for a fact that in NewsCorp (where I’ve worked as a writer for Gutfeld!) all the women who wear really high heels on air walk around the building in sandals and only put on the shoes when they are (sitting down) on air.

Recently, I was doing a show in Brooklyn and Janeane Garofalo came into the club, as she was on the show after me. I greatly admire Garofalo, and though we’ve had quick pleasantries in passing, I’m too shy to bother her and, I take it, like me, she’s introvert so I leave her be. She is a self proclaimed walker. She looks great for her age. She walks all the way from NYC, for miles, to Brooklyn and then walks all the way back. She walks in the summer and the winter. It’s kind of crazy, but in a good way. Next time I see her, I’ll pay closer attention to her feet tires. I wonder if she has insoles.

I, too, like to walk great distances. Often, I walk for miles around the city (in better weather, I’m a known little bitch in the winter). In Paris, I walked ten to fifteen miles every day. Something about my body moving allows my mind to move slower. Usually, I walk pretty fast. Even when I’m not in a rush to go anyway.

My feet get so much wear from walking and running I can scrape calluses off like peeling a carrot and not feel a thing (is this sexy to foot fetish people?). Calluses so thick, they almost feel like tires. My callused feet too sometimes get little bubble blisters in them. Especially in the summer. Most of the time they don’t hurt me, but even when they do, they don’t hurt as much as losing $360.