I always knew that disco would be the end of me. For years I have attempted to escape from disco, but here we are, at the end of the road. A giant boulder blocks my path, and disco stands before me, its poncho lightly fluttering in the breeze, a loaded six-shooter aimed at my head.
Thing is, podiatry just wasn’t that popular back in the 1970s. This was a less enlightened time, when you’d tease your hair into a massive perm, squeeze into your neon-yellow leather trousers and boogie for six hours straight in a poorly lit disco while ABBA’s Voulez Vous plays on repeat.
The early foot specialists in Cheltenham would put up flyers and host seminars on why people really should wear orthotics if they were planning on boogying that long, but we scoffed with the derision of the young and free-spirited.
“Foot doctors?” we would say. “What, could you only remember how to treat one part of the body, unlike a real doctor? Boogie to you!”
And then right there in the middle of the seminar, when a poor podiatrist was trying to tell us about orthotics and arch supports, someone turned on their boombox and we rudely interrupted the whole thing by getting up on our chairs and vigorously boogying to ABBA’s Gimme, Gimme, Gimme. So disrespectful.
Now I’m old and grey, and I’m making frequent visits to the podiatrist. They ask me why my ankles are in such a state, and I have to admit that it’s because I spent so much time wearing eight-inch platform shoes that were also very small octopus aquariums, and dancing in them all night to ABBA’s Super Trouper. Not a good combination. Who decided that heels and boogying was a good combo?
Anyway, I’ve accepted my mistake. I support arch support insoles. Got no choice…my years of getting down to boogie have left me with ankles like rice krispies.
-Gretchen