Eight bad things to step on

by Simon Handby in At home on 07.07.08

On Saturday, in the South Coast’s last bit of good weather before gales and heavy storms, I braved a swim in the channel. Unfortunately, as those familiar with Brighton’s Blue Flag-winning beaches will know, this involves crossing a stretch of pebbly, rocky beach barefoot – something that I seem incapable of doing without waving my arms around for balance and contriving to look almost entirely unlike Daniel Craig.

Oh alright, entirely unlike him.

Anyway, while tottering around like a trainee stilt walker, I found myself wondering why it is that I find pebbles and sea shells quite so painful underfoot, and concocting a list of other things I wouldn’t want to step on. Here it is:

8 Banana skin
I’m sure that I’m in the majority when I confess that I’ve never actually stepped on a banana skin, but then again I’ve never skidded a car into boxes containing chickens and watermelons, either. I’ve stepped on stray grapes before, which doesn’t quite have the same comedic value.

7 Children’s toys
Tricky one to categorise this. Treading on a beloved soft toy probably wouldn’t hurt, but fending off its distraught owner might. Then there are middling, flimsy toys like polystyrene planes that would probably yield underfoot. And then there’s Lego. Treading on Lego hurts.

6 Dog poo
Here’s one that you could reasonably have expected to see higher up my list, but while I don’t want to tempt fate, I’ve never stood in the stuff without shoes on.

Still, yuk, eh?

5 Plug
Like answering the iron when the phone rings, here’s something you do only once. Far from being designed for the utmost electrical safety, British mains plugs are in fact built to cause excruciating pain. It’s a little-known fact that the phrase “three-pronged attack” was coined by someone who’d stepped on one. If you ever see a plug lying on its back, turn it over or tidy it totally out of the way.

4 Thin air
This isn’t something that hurts unless it comes as a surprise, in which case the consequences can hurt rather a lot.

3 Glass
Treading on this hurts, and can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, wearing shoes is no guarantee of protection.

Nor, it turns out, are prosthetic Hobbit feet – just ask actor Sean Astin, who played Samwise in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He ended up in hospital after skewering his foot during filming of the first movie.

2 Small, defenceless creature
There’s no physical pain involved in this, at least, not for the owner of the foot, but there is the sad crunch, sag or sigh as one of God’s most harmless creations expires needlessly underfoot.

If you’re particularly sensitive, the guilt can be, er, crushing.

1 Large, defensive creature
In the list of things not to tread on, large, violent beasts are right up there. Parts of some might feel misleadingly cozy – a Rottweiler’s tail, for example. With others – a stonefish, say – you’ll know you’re in trouble from the outset.

TOP IMAGE by Flickr user monkeyleader