Getting a Toe-Hold On Fashion

If there's one thing I find endlessly fascinating, it's cosmetic surgery. Those 'before' pictures taken with disfiguring clothing and no lights or make-up. The 'after' pictures snapped in a professional studio with the benefit of all that Hollywood has to offer. Who amongst us hasn't looked at those images and dreamt of a world where we all look like Meg Ryan?

In this brave new world, you guys have it over us in spades. We bow down to your greater experience and are filled with wonder and amazement at what you'll come up with next.

For now, at least, my appetite has been satiated by news that the perfect 'toe cleavage' is a mere surgical procedure or two away. If my shoes don't fit anymore, I won't need to trouble myself with a time consuming shopping trip to replace them -- I can simply have a toe shortened, a bunion surgically removed or both my feet remodelled.

Not for me the slightest concern of permanent numbness, the inability to walk properly ever again or a life filled with constant debilitating pain. And not a single normal length toe on my average feet curled at the thought of spending 2 thousand 500 dollars per digit to submit to the knife.

To be honest, I'd never really noticed my toe-cleavage before now and I'd always, rather naively it seems, just bought shoes that fitted and left the other kind on the shelves. What kind of woman does that make me, eh?

Just a thought – and I don't want to be a killjoy here - but has anyone considered asking shoe designers if they could find a way of producing their works of art in larger sizes? If they refuse we could contemplate an impassioned protest march.

Oh, I forgot -- we can't, can we – now our toes are too short and our soles so stuffed with collagen that standing unaided is unimaginable. Never mind, I'm sure it won't be long before surgeons find a way of permanently attaching walking sticks to the palms of our hands – beautifully of course!

By Petrie Hosken