The Sweet Smell of Perfumed Feet

The Sweet Smell of Perfumed Feet ©

By Michael Casey

The Caseys have  a long tradition of smelly feet, my dad worked in a steel works for 40 years so he had a good excuse. After a 10, 12 or even 16 hour shift mum would pull his socks off with the tongs she used to do the washing with in the old fashioned twin tub washing machine. It was a miracle for her when she allowed dad to get her an automatic washing machine after decades of the twin tub and using a mangle.

The heat in the steel works practically glues dad’s socks to his feet, hence mum using the wooden tongs, almost like joined chop sticks. Was that a pointer to my future but we never knew?  Dad would wash his feet in the bowl in the living room, before stating it was so good to have clean feet. Mum was not Veronica in the Bible, but close enough, close enough indeed. Afterwards the bowl of water was thrown away, and the bowl rinsed, it was later used to do the washing up of the dishes after we had dinner, yes the same bowl. Sometimes a little Jeyes Fluid was used to clean dad’s feet, which is used normally to clean drains.

As for me we went on a school field trip to Romsley when I was 12, it lasted a week and was intended to teach townies about the Countryside, obviously with my family background  I did have some knowledge already. So we went to a pond to catch tadpoles in a little net attached to a bamboo pole, again was this Fate pointing to my future? I dived forward into the pond and my wellingtons filled with water, so I had to take them off and empty the water from them.

Then like Winnie the Pooh following Christopher Robin we followed our teacher around all day. Then we returned to the coach that would take us back to Bellbroughton where we stayed all week, if I’m wrong I’m sure  Big D or rather Big D PhD will remember and email me. On the coach my socks had slipped down so I had to remove the wellington to readjust my sock. As the stench from my feet spread from my  feet there was mass panic in the ranks and people forced their heads out of the coach windows. So as you can imagine I am well remembered because of that episode.

Moving on a generation, my own daughter, the Doctor in waiting has smelly feet, very smelly feet. My Ck1 which lasts me a year ran out last night, so I started another bottle. When you have your own girls they will encourage you both to shave and to splash a little something on your face. I also have an old bottle of Jean Paul Gautier, you know the one with the man’s torso bottle design, the blue bottle. Anyway today I decided we’d have a smell test.

The girls were sat there laughing and joking after they had had Bird’s Eye Fish Fingers, which  is a treat of you live on Chinese food cooked by Shanghai mum, it’s the opposite to full English people if you like. So I got my bottles of smelly stuff out and put it on the table. Ck1, Jean Paul Gautier and I’d refilled the empty Ck1 bottle with water. So we would do a smell test.

To do it properly you have to have testers so you can wand the scent under your nose, you know little pieces of paper to spray the scent on. As we didn’t have any I improvised by tearing up the Birds Eye Fish Fingers packaging card  from the box and sprayed three samples on to 3 pieces of paper. Ck1 water, Ck1 new bottle and the Jean Paul Gautier. Then we smelt them in turn and the girls gave their verdict.

They liked the Ck1 best, it is a bisexual, or rather I should say suited for both male and female, unisex is the correct word, I just had to ask my Doctor in waiting. You can see how by strangling language I get some of my comedy, directly and indirectly. My daughters don’t really like the JPG so I won’t buy any more in future not unless the man himself reads this and would like to send me a 200ml bottle of his other creations. In return I’ll send him my 10 books and a photo of me, via email. I do have some French readers but who they are I do not know, not unless it’s Bardot.

My small daughter could not resist the temptation so she sprayed Ck1 all over my big daughter’s feet. Totoro passed by and sniffed them before dashing upstairs to hide under the beds, so what that meant I do not know. What I do know though is that a bit of smelly stuff on your face after you shave is nice, so Ck1 is the one for me, or anything if it’s free.