Fair warning: This post is kind of gross.

I went swimming with Akira tonight and in the locker room I saw an elderly man with shocking feet.  This guy’s feet were crusted with fungus. His toenails were thick and white, and extended way past the ends of his toes. His skin was briney and cracked, and the cracks were bristling with fungus.

I think, “Darn. Not a good day to forget my flip-flops. I have to walk on the same floor as him.” I’ve been pretty rigorous about wearing flip-flops in locker rooms ever since I caught a fungus in the Eugene YMCA many years ago. (At least I think it was at the Y. How can you really tell?) It was a crappy case because it was exacerbated by sunlight, which is unusual. I could not go barefoot in the sun for years without it flaring up. And I love going barefoot in the sun. I went to a dermatologist in Springfield who said, and I quote, “I have never heard of that. I cannot help you with that.” I eventually cured it last summer with this wearying routine: I bought every topical antifungal I could find (tolnaftate, clotrimazole, miconazole nitrate, terbinafine hydrochloride, and butenafine hydrochloride) and used them twice a day, morning and night, rotating the medication every four days, until there had been no symptoms for 30 days. No flare-ups since then, even barefoot in the sun.

So I was walking around the locker room, feeling creeped out about invisible fungal spores everywhere, and it hit me that the place was teeming with people who were not wearing flip-flops. No one was wearing flip-flops at all. And I imagined that no one else was thinking about fungus, just running around, taking showers, getting dressed. Locker room stuff. I think, “These people are probably not going to go home with a fungal infection, and I’m probably not either, but this guy did at some point, and so did I, and what’s the difference?” Did that guy have feet like that because he’s old and has had a long time to collect crazy fungi with them? Is it because his immune system is not functioning in some way? Is it because his skin is extra-susceptible for some reason? Why him and not these kids? Why him and hopefully not me?