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| My ridiculously ticklish bare soles! Can be seen at just about every wedding reception, rockin' the dancefloor! :) |
"Are ya' TICKLISH? Hmm?" :)
...Go ahead, say it. It's Ok, normal, if you feel a smile curling at the corners of your lips. Just the word, "ticklish", does tend to make you smile when you see it or say it! Tickling, itself, elicits a great feeling of fun & laughter, and sometimes it conjures up complete, cartoonish silliness. Some people are turned on by it...That's totally fine, but that's really not what this is about. This piece here is kind of a continuation of what was started a few blogs back, about that comical pedicure scrubby and keeping that brand of silly "funny" going...and it's also a letter of endless gratitude to 4 very special people in my life, for their priceless friendship & the continued positive light & laughter that they bring into my soul. Hah, it just so happens to be about tickling soles!..Truth be told, some of us love lightly running a finger up a bare foot to spur on a "gasp & giggle (Hah, some of us just can't resist the urge to tickle if the opportunity is there), or having it done to us in return. Those pedicure girls sure seem to love dishing it out with their pumice stones while you sit, twitching, in their cushy massage chairs. But, even away from the pedicure places, some of us grew up loving the frequent feet tickling scenes in the Three Stooges, Flintstones, the Little Rascals, or countless other TV shows & cartoons. In fact, I ask this simple question: Has anyone reading this ever been in a bad mood after tickling feet/getting tickled? No way, not unless you had a loss of bladder control, or you weren't allowed to breathe-That's usually the only time someone will get annoyed & pissed off! Otherwise it's usually fun & laughs...and "More, please!"
And I'm not alone. Some of my dearest friends here feel exactly like I do, and throughout our history, there's been many hilarious funny feet tickling incidents, and now we're gonna share some of the humor with the world, maybe make a few new people laugh, too! First up is my beautiful pal, Jocetta, with the most addicting laugh you'll ever love to hear (you'd want it as a ringtone, it's THAT good!).. The best part about all my friends mentioned here, in this blog, is that they are all CRAZY ticklish on the bottoms of their feet like me, and their reactions are just hysterical & always worth watching a repeat of! So, Jocetta & I were having a perfectly silly-ass conversation about tickling, and how much we both loved it, as she had her feet in my lap getting a foot massage (Hah, that's how most of these get started! Once the feet are in the lap, it's only a matter of time 'til the laughs begin!), and we exchanged tickles on each other's bare feet, taking turns, keeping it fun, but mellow. But she had moderately long fingernails, which tickled me a LOT more than I think she was receiving. I had short, groomed, guys' fingernails, which did make her laugh & spasm nicely, but I knew I had to up my game to get bigger, better laughs! Then one day, I was at 7-11, getting a coffee. On the checkout counter, there was a cup with small, extendable, metal back-scratchers for $3.99, and these things resembled a small leaf rake! As soon as I laid eyes on these mini-rakes, I immediately thought, "Oh man those things would just be AWESOME on the bottoms of feet!!" ..Hah, yes, these are the types of dumb things that go through my mind.. Well, guess what? That rake worked like a charm! You know it's good when the person getting "the rake" lets out a huge, uncontrollable belly laugh and exclaims, "OH MY GOD, that tickles SO much!!" ..Score!! The trick with it is to know just exactly how much pressure to use: Too lightly, it'll barely register. Too much, it'll hurt and/or annoy. ..And just to let you know, if you can't get your hands on one, a plastic fork works wonders on bare soles too! In fact, we nicknamed that one, "Getting Forked". As in, "Hey, feel like getting forked?" ..Love my 'Cettababy! Jocetta + me + Corona lights + "the rake" = never a dull hang!
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| "'Cettababy" (looooves a "rake"!) |
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| The "RAKE" |
Next up is my sweet, wonderful & too-amazing-for-words friend, Ruby. The funny feet tickling incident with us wasn't that long, only a few minutes at best, but it's all the surrounding stuff that makes this story so good! I had the incredible, blessed fortune of meeting Ruby while on vacation at a kickass 5-star resort in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1998. I was staying there with my friends at a timeshare they owned, and Ruby was there, vacationing with her own group of friends. We ended up meeting at a pool-aerobics class (that's a story in itself), and totally hit if off as friends, with a shared sense of humor and a genuine love of laughing, and both of us having the instant ability to make each other crack up without warning. One night during that week's vacation, Ruby came down with a really bad stomach ache that prevented her from taking the 45 minute cab ride into downtown Acapulco for another night of alcohol-fueled fun, so I was chilling out in her hotel room, keeping her company. Sitting at the foot of her bed, rubbing her feet to try and help her relax, I inadvertantly (I swear it was accidental!) raked a finger across her bare sole, causing a tremendously cute flinch & laugh. Of course, when she laughed, I laughed also, and then I HAD to tickle her foot again, getting the same wonderful reaction. Then a third time before she jerked her foot back in a big, ticklish spasm. At this point, I couldn't help notice that the soles of her bare feet were very light, almost white, in contrast with her deep, extreeeeeemely dark Latina tan. I made the comment about the color contrast, and Ruby said that the dark tan/white bottoms made her feet looked like a monkey's feet! So I joked that I wondered if she could peel a banana with her feet, then! ..Lo and behold, there was a banana in a fruit basket in her hotel room! Game on!! Yes, it is true..Ruby sat there, stomach ache and all, and peeled a banana using only her toes! And thus, the nickname "Monkeyfeet" was born...A nickname that still exists 13 yrs. later! I absolutely LOVE my Monkeyfeet, and I value our friendship more than Fort Knox's gold!
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| Nicole, my childhood "tickle nemesis", and possessor of the most contagious ticklish laughter out there! Her ticklish laughter is like nitrous oxide at the dentist: If you hear it, you absolutely WILL start laughing too! |
Next up in the "Tales of the Ticklish" is my dear, precious, stunning, childhood friend, Nicole, who I've known since I was 4 yrs. old. To say that Nicole has loved tickling my feet (and me getting her bare feet in return) since we were little kids, would be just about the most literal statement ever made! It's STILL going on now, even though we're supposedly "grown-ups"! Nicole has just about the most violent reaction ever when her feet are tickled, so if you plan on goin' in for the big laughs, just be aware that you have to protect your face from an accidental fat lip or black eye, and protect your groin from a spastic kick that turns the world into an orange flash of pain & the inability to breathe! Like with my other beautiful friends, feet tickles with Nicole tend to stem from "foot massages gone awry"...BUT Nicole is not adverse to just non-chalantly walking up behind you while you're laying on the couch or floor, plopping down on your ankles (pinning your bare feet), and immediately running her (always) long fingernails up & down your soles! Hah, before you even know what's happening, you're cracking up laughing and trying desperately to unpin your feet! And Nicole relishes every second of this, as she's usually laughing as hard as you are (or harder) as she dishes it out. She cannot walk by a bare foot without running a fingernail up the sole, just to see what the reaction will be (..I can't say any negative sh*t about this, because I am the same way. Bare feet, just sitting there vulnerable, MUST be tickled)! But now, in 2011, with two daughters, she has a coupla' all-too-willing helpers when these "attacks" happen, thereby insuring the next generation of mischievous feet ticklers is already set! Love ya', my lifelong friend, even tho' you are downright EVIL! ..But evil in a deliciously fun way!
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| Emilie: Bare Feet at Weddings = Feet Tickled at Weddings! LOL! |
Finally, last but not least, is the hilarious & pretty, ultra-ticklish, and just plan amazing Emilie! Em & I were rockin' the dancefloor all night at her cousin Erin's wedding to my lifelong buddy Curt, and, of course, no surprise to anyone, we both had shoes off before anyone else at the reception, bare feet as soon as the party started, and joyfully stayed that way for the duration, even IF people were rolling their eyes at us! (Total normal behavior for this crew! LOL!!). In fact, Emilie, who is not from NY, and was meeting many of us for the first time, said to me, "I was a little worried what everyone was gonna think about the 'hick girl' from Michigan, with her shoes off & going barefoot all night.. Then I saw you barefoot, too, and I KNEW that we we were gonna have fun!!" (Awwwww, I truly loved hearing this! That sentence will always warm my heart!) ..As luck (or a very well-planned game plan by Erin) would have it, Emilie caught the thrown bouquet, and I caught the thrown garter. So then it was "showtime": time for me to apply the garter to her leg! I sauntered out to Emilie, sitting in the center of the dance floor on the chair, beautiful bare feet peeking out from her stunning bridesmaid dress, did a really goofy, stupid, dance, then kneeled down & took hold of her bare foot (Yes, I would have removed the shoe IF it was still on! C'mon, you HAVE to!), and, in front of the entire room, an audience of 200 people, began lightly tickling that bare foot, right in the "nuclear laughter zone": the arch! Hah, she stiffened up in the chair, and bit her smiling lip, trying to hold in the growing laugh that was trying to burst out! But then threw her head back, and laughed, wonderfully, out loud, which is exactly what I was going for! Being the, uh, sweetheart gentleman that I am, I was nice and took it easy on her, and only tickled her for maybe 5-7 seconds, at the most, then gently slipped the garter on, and we continued our awesome party night together, except that, after I tickled her bare feet, the night quickly became a "Who Can Tickle Whose Feet" contest, with both of us trying to sneak up on each other, to quickly get fingers on each other's feet when the other one wasn't looking! LOL! This meant sneaking up behind chairs, and reaching under tables when we were sitting next to each other! That was a FUN night, and Emilie most certainly got her revenge on my feet back on Erin's couch, when I was too intoxicated to escape...Not that I ever REALLY wanted to.. :)
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| The wedding reception, seconds AFTER Em's garter tickle! |
That's all for now. I'm sure there'll be plenty more of this to share down the road, as this is only the tip of the ticklish iceberg! Yeah, it might be totally weird to write a blog post about it, but tickling feet is perfect comedic FUN! So watch where you're barefoot, because you just never know who may be lurking around, looking for laughs...
