A couple of weeks ago I noticed a brown spot on my foot I wasn’t too worried about it. I could just be getting older. Isn’t that what happens to you as you get older - you get spots? When my friend found out the first thing she said was, “You better get it checked because it could be skin cancer.” My friend is a bit of a hypochondriac and seems to think any sudden spot or change on your skin can only mean one thing - skin cancer. I know that as you age you begin to get spots and things grow out of places that you didn’t even know existed, but I guess that’s normal and inevitable, so when I saw the spot I wasn’t too concerned. I mean how likely is it that I would get skin cancer on my foot?

Needless to say, my friend’s words kept running though my mind. The more I thought about it the more I began to think that maybe it was something serious and I should get it checked. One morning I sat in the bathroom looking at my foot and the brown spot on the top of my foot and couldn’t help but notice how sharp the edges were - I didn’t know if that was a good sign or bad, but I figured it was a sign and then I noticed there was another faint spot just to the right of the first one. On the off chance that I had dirty feet, I licked my thumb and rubbed it against the spots but neither of them came off, so I didn’t have dirty feet. I had spots on my feet.

Later that day I called my friend and asked her if she could take a look at it. “You think it could be something serious?” I asked her a little worried.

“I’m no expert,” she said, “but let’s take a look.” Plop that big dog up here” she patted her lap. I just looked at her when I asked if there was something serious I didn’t expect her to give my feet an examination. I’m not a foot person - I hate having other people’s feet touch me and it just seemed sort of weird for me to have my friend touch my feet. “Come on, give me your foot” She said

“Uh..I don’t want to.”

“Oh come on, don’t be shy. You’re going to have to let someone look at it and besides how bad could they be? I have an older brother whose feet used to stink so bad that on family trips my dad used to make him ride with his feet sticking out the window.” I laughed at the image of her brother riding in the car with his feet sticking out the window. “Your feet can’t possibly stink more than that.”

I looked at her with a sideways glance, “My feet don’t stink at all.”

“just put it up here.“ I put my foot on my friend’s lap. “You’re right. It doesn’t smell.“ She leaned in a little and took a breath.

I looked at her with a strange look and slightly disgusted look on my face, who actually smells someone else’s feet? I don’t care if you’re friends or not - you don’t go around smelling other people’s feet - It’s just not right. I said, “I’m right 97 to 98 percent of the time and usually the other 2 -3 percent is because someone gave me wrong information.“

My friend just rolled her eyes and then began to look at the spot on my foot “It looks weird” she said licking her thumb and then rubbing against the spot.

“Hey!” I said starting to pull away from her, but she held my foot tightly.

“It might be dirty” She said smiling then the smile faded. “I bet you it’s some sort of melanoma”

“A whoda whada?” I asked not really hearing the word melanoma.

“A melanoma. A skin cancer.” She looked serious now and by the look she gave me I knew that I shouldn’t joke about it. ”You really should get it checked. You have three of them on this foot. Let me see the other foot.”

“Huh?” I didn’t even think to look at my other foot. I didn’t hesitate this time I put my foot in my friend’s lap and sure enough there were brown spots on it too. We just looked at each other and I think at that time we both had an idea that more than likely it wasn’t anything to worry about, but if it wasn’t cancer what could it be? Maybe I was turning into some sort of spotted mutant super-villain. I didn’t know what was happening but I did know I had to get it checked out. I’d hate to let it go and then die of some sort of rare spotted disease

Here lies Tony
He had spots on his feet
He didn’t worry about it
Now, he’s food for worms to eat

I called and made an appointment with a dermatologist . I hate going to see the doctor, even if it is a dermatologist, so as usual I paced in the waiting room. Finally, I was called back by a nice older lady who asked me different questions and asked me to take off my shoes so she could see the spots.

“I’ve never seen anything like that.” she said, “We’ll see what the doctor thinks, she should be in shortly.”

maybe there was still a chance I was becoming a mutant with evil spotted powers, was the first thought that went through my head. The second thought that went through my head was “why is this older lady looking at my feet if she’s not the doctor and why is she touching them?”

It wasn’t long before the doctor came in. It was like in a movie where the door opens slowly and you see a pair of long legs in four inch black stilettos come through first. As she walks in it’s as if she’s a model walking the runway with the wind machine blowing her hair and lab coat back in slow motion.

She licked her lips and said, “Hi sweetie, I hear you spots on your feet.” A curl of hair fell down in front of her face, she pushed it back. “lay back and lets see what we’ve got.” I sucked in my gut and melted into the examination table as she looked at my feet. ”Hummm, this is strange” she smiled. “You have six perfect circles on each foot”

“Six circles?” I sat up. “I didn’t have that many before.” I looked at my right foot and she was right there were three darker circles with two others that were not as dark. I didn’t see the sixth one, but I took her word for it - she is the professional. I looked at my other foot and I could clearly see six spots. I looked up at the doctor and asked, “What is it?”

“it’s nothing to worry about.” She kind of chuckled. I couldn’t believe that she chuckled while I was sitting there mutating into who knows what or I was on death’s doorstep with some sort of rare melanoma. “I can guarantee you that those spots are nothing to worry about” She turned and picked something up from the floor. At first I didn’t know what it was but then I saw she had my shoes. I guess that was the end of the appointment - I was definitely going somewhere else for a second opinion. “Watch this.” she said as she slid my shoes onto my feet.

As she slid my shoes on, it was so obvious that I had to laugh and wanted to slap my forehead. The holes on my Crocs matched exactly with the spots. The spots were nothing more than tanned areas of my feet.

“Wow” was all I said.

“Let’s just write this up as a free consultation.” she said as she smiled and walked out the door.