Miss Smith (I'm giving her an alias) was my second grade teacher. She was funny, smart, pretty, young, etc., but the thing I remember most about her: Her big toes had almost no toenails. Why did this pop back into my brain? It is more than likely a where-should-I-file-this-experience that has lingered in the dust bunny-filled recesses of my mind, waiting for its walking papers.
She was a tall, broad shouldered woman and everything about her was large, for a woman, or at least my perception of women in all of my 6 or 7 years. Her toes were like big fleshy things with small dots in the center of each of them, the small dots being her toenails. I know this because everyday during story time she would sit in a chair, and we, her students, would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her. I always tried to sit up front, right next to her so I could stare at her toes.
Sharing my obsession with Miss Smith's feet with my classmates was never an option. Not because I was ashamed or embarrassed that I was fascinated by her toenail deformity, but because if everyone knew about those strange toes, there would have been an impromptu game of King of the Mountain to sit next to her feet during story time, and I was a skinny, scrawny little runt with no hopes of winning.
Today I tried googling images of big toes with tiny toe nails, and I didn't see anything that resembled Miss Smith's toes. Maybe that explains my being enthralled with the things...maybe no one else had or has had since, that toenail problem. Perhaps she is the one and only person on the planet with that condition, and I was there to see them!
Now that I've written this down, I'm hoping those walking papers will be granted, and the images of Miss Smith's strangely beautiful (in a morbid, creepy sense) toenails will walk right out of my head, and for good.
--Fortuitous Observer
