Danny Merrell Won’t Be Wearing Shorts for Quite a While

It all started as a New Year's Eve promise from my 10 year old daughter.  If I would buy some fireworks to welcome in 2015 she would give me a foot massage. 

I agreed to the terms.

Actually, I had already bought the fireworks but the last time I had a foot massage the Oilers were still in Houston and Sissy had just ridden the bull at Gilley's for the first time, so I didn't mind misleading my daughter.

The fireworks were great and the traditional New Year's meal was superb.  The weather outside was frightful with the cold and 3 inches of rain, but that allowed our family to spend some great quality time together indoors.  As the 2nd day of 2015 wound down, my youngest asked if I would now like to have my feet massaged.  I was already half-asleep on the couch and thought this would be a wonderful way to drift off into never never land.

The following is the conversation surround the massage as I remember it:

Daughter:  "Would you like for me use lotion?"

Me: "Yes, that would be wonderful."

A few minutes later she returns with the lotion and goes to work on my feet.  I'm absolutely loving life as I melt into a middle-aged stupor.

Daughter:  "Dad! Your feet are really dry, I'm going to use something to strip off the dead skin, but your feet also need to be wet so I'm going to also use Mom's Conair Foot Massager that blows bubbles."

Me (in stupor):  "Mmm hmmm...sure"

My memory gets a little more clouded from here on out but I do remember my feet being treated to about a 5 minute bubble infused massage and then my daughter pulled out the Pedi-Egg...or whatever it's called.  It's basically a cheese grater for body parts with dead skin.  I think you're supposed to brush the 'egg' over the area for a few swipes, but that wasn't the case here.

Once again, I was halfway to la-la land but somehow my daughter turned this harmless cosmetic device into an angle grinder.  Back and forth, up and down, my youngest was in essence sanding my feet.  At one point, she opened up the egg to show me what she had collected. Parmesan, she had collected two inches of parmesan.

Wasn't this process painful?  Probably, yes. But, you see, there are somethings called endorphins which the body produces when you enter sleep.  One of their effects is that they limit the pain and stress that your body is feeling.  I think they also affect your better judgment. When my girl said she was going to be right back with a razor, that's exactly when I should have stopped this foot massage gone out of control.

But, I didn't.

When a 10-year-old girl says she going to shave the unnecessary hair on your feet and legs, the warning flags that should pop up in your brain are too numerous to mention.  But, I was so tired and out of it, my brain felt like it was on its third dose of Nyquil.  So, I allowed the shearing to take place.

Let's cut to the end.

I try to be an optimistic person.  I try to always look for the silver lining in a bad or tough situation.  And after staring at the end result of my daughter's 'foot massage', the one silver lining I can take out of this is thank God it's Winter.  I shouldn't have the need to wear shorts in public until at least March.

Maybe my daughter knew that I had misled her about the fireworks and this was her well thought out payback.