Recently I had to throw out the Sperry slip-ons that, as faithful reader(s) will recall, were a gift of fate. For the third time while wearing them without socks I was visited by a nasty heat rash.

The first time this happened it was 100+ degrees out, and wearing canvas slip-ons sock-less seemed prudent to me. About fifteen minutes after I removed my shoes, a blockish patch of skin on the top of my foot swelled up and turned red. Taking a closer look I realized that my toes and inner and outer arches had been affected as well.
The skin was thick and tough–the texture of extra firm tofu came to mind–and itched like the dickens.
I did some research on the web and discovered that heat rashes occur when sweat glands get clogged with sweat and become inflamed.

A harmless rash that goes away within a week, it’s also called Prickly Heat and is most common in infants who fall asleep against their mothers skin. Wearing super tight polyester pants can cause them as well (can‘t I have any fun?).
I chalked it up to an abnormally hot and humid day and limped off to the store to get some hydrocortisone cream.
The second time was only a week or so later. My feet looked better and the heat wave had subsided so I took a foolish chance and ended up with a rash four times as hideous. This time blisters formed all across the top of my feet. When I’d squat down on my toes, they would burst and rifle pus water across the room. That part was kinda fun, but the itching was worse and I had to take a day off of work; relegated to the couch with my feet in a stock pot full of cold oatmeal soak.
What’s fucked is that I wore the stupid Sperry shoes without socks the day that Gilded Gelding and I skated all over creation trying to watch soccer games without even an inkling of prickly prickly–and that day was hot and humid as they come. Regardless, you’d think two run-ins would be enough to learn me good, but you’d be wrong. A quick jog to the video store in the rain on a 60 degree day, how could there possibly be any harm in that?

The feet are red and itchy once again. Now I’m an old hand and the discomfort is less frightening, though the day after the rash appeared I took of my shoes and began an impromptu scratch-fest that lasted for a good five minutes. It felt amazing: somewhere in between a sneeze and an orgasm. I scratched and scratched and then rubbed at the skin with the palms of my hands. Then the red patches started beading up with pus water and I started to panic. I threw the Sperrys into the trash and vowed never go without socks again.

That is, unless…