I’ve always loved thrift shopping while supporting charities at the same time. Last week, it was an item from One Dog At A Time that took my fancy.
The women who run ODAAT work tirelessly to post donated items online, in order to raise funds for their cause. Among the toys, kitchen tools and furniture, I spied a foot massager. As one who suffers from plantar fasciitis and bursitis (they don’t tell you when you’re young that your 50s are the ‘itis’ years), I wondered if it could help. It was a good brand and not too expensive; besides, could I really put a price on my gait? I usually walk at a fair clip, but ever since my foot issues flared up, I’ve been lumbering around like a Yeti. If there was a tidal wave coming, I would be engulfed immediately, unless I just happened to have my trusty roller skates in hand. (‘Beloved journalist and plus-size model found expired on beach wearing neon pink skates; island mourns.’)
Anyway, I was all excited to go and pick up my ‘new’ treasure, so I arranged a time that evening to swing by the thrift shop and get it. For starters, it was bigger than I had expected (Oo – matron!), and weighed a fair bit. (I’ve always loved that line from ‘Jurassic Park’: “Are they heavy? Then they’re expensive.” Going by that yardstick, this foot massager must have cost a fortune when it was new.)
As Paula Wythe of ODAAT handed it over, she said, “It’s a good one, this. No instruction manual, but you can probably find that online.”
I nearly had full ownership, when she added, “Go a bit careful at the beginning – I gave it a try and nearly leapt out of my seat.”
Alrighty…
My dear bestie Lynne looked at it askance as I carefully loaded it into the car. “What the heck is that?” she asked.
“The answer to all my foot issues, and a glorious addition to the household,” I replied, already half-ignoring her as I went searching around the Internet for the user guide.
By the time we got home, I hadn’t found anything, but we figured we’d try to work out the different buttons on our own. Naturally, because I was a complete coward, I told Lynne she should go first. Besides, I hadn’t completely given up the hope of a late-life ballet career, and if one of us accidentally had our feet crushed by an unfamiliar machine and had to be carried by the other, there was no question that I would have to be the beast of burden.
Lynne sat on the couch with the massager on the floor before her. We hooked it up to electricity, as she slipped her wee peds into the black cushioned depths, and pushed the power button. Immediately a number of lights in varying colours from the rainbow appeared with strange symbols on them, kinda like the stones from ‘The Fifth Element’.
“Oo,” said Lynne, sitting up straight, followed by a bit of a yelp and an uninterpretable sucking of lips against her teeth.
“Good? Bad? Really bad??” I asked, as she squirmed in place.
“No… it’s okay, just need to adjust things,” she said, pounding the buttons through different colours as her back climbed up the couch. “Are those the lowest settings?”
As I flew across page after page on the web, trying to find anything resembling the control panel and coming up with nothing, the machine churned away like it was mixing bread dough. The scene would not have been out of place in an Indiana Jones flick – trying to get the intrepid hero out of a booby trap before it lopped off his feet. “I don’t really know,” I said, almost in a panic. “I’m not finding anything.”
Of course, all we had to do was shut the power off, and give the massager a rest.
“I think I need bigger socks,” Lynne said. “My feet are pretty bony.”
As mine were anything but bony at my present weight, I decided it was time to put on my big girl pants and give the contraption a go. Stand aside, Lynne – I’ll take it from here.
We fired it up, in went my socked feet, and… Well, I have to be honest, I actually found it pretty great. Maybe Lynne’s Jack Skellington extremities really were the issue. I found the pressure to be good and my toes weren’t rebelling. Sitting there in my old pyjamas like that, with everything below my calves swallowed up in a large piece of throbbing hardware, I thought, “Vicki, you’ve never looked sexier.”
I gave it a go for about 10 minutes, until it came to the end of its cycle. I know you’re all dying to know – did it work? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Genuinely, honestly, it really helped my feet, well into the next day. Another happy ending is that Lynne got some military-grade thick socks, and now she uses it on a regular basis too.
The moral of the story is that if something initially feels like it’s trying to rip your feet off, don’t just give up – try and try again. Also, support local charities – because you never know when they might make your future dancing dreams come true.
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