Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

I had a ninth grade English teacher — a dead ringer for Mr. Feeney — who wore these exceptionally pleated pants, so pleated they gave him a pear shape. And he had an aversion to “boy feet,” so in that 1994 heyday of Tevas and Birks he’d go around doing “shoe safety checks.”

It seems strange to me now, but I accepted it as the normal course of business in those days. Roughly 10% of each lecture was devoted to “boy feet” and their grossness, which prepared me for a world in which some folks hate/fear boy feet, others fetishize them, many don’t care

He hated large feet in particular, and always knew which male students had the largest feet and not only the longest toenails but the longest nail pads, the area where the nail sits directly on the toe. Until he began expounding on that, I’d never given it any thought

Even back then, I was already missing two entire nails — there’s nothing there — and one day I was wearing some Reef sandals and the teacher took notice and began saying, “yuck yuck, Mr Pink Foot” and thereafter called me “Pinky,” a nickname that didn’t follow me out of the class