She is every bit the professional.
I was late, again.
This time it was two huge cranes tugging at tree branches just before the Havelock North bridge. At other times, it's usually the train crossing that breaks my stride.
A couple of humble apologies later, I was exposing my ugly toenails to her.
"No, it doesn't bother me at all," the podiatrist said.
I swear I had a pronounced curvature on the insides of my feet.
I remember laughing at my elder brother in our high school days, calling him a platypus for planting his feet like a Neanderthal.
Now I have defaulted to the flat-foot colony.
Sold on the edict of "No Pain, No Gain", I whipped out my credit card several years ago to order a pair of orthotics that caught my eye on an Infomercial.
It has worked for me.
Although there was excruciating pain in the early days, I have found a degree of relief from the American university-designed orthotic insoles.
Like a lost soul sold on some pyramid-selling scheme, I sang the praises of the insoles at every soccer and cricket field.
Needless to say the Bay podiatrist isn't buying it.
"What, after all that pain?" she asked, rocking the foundation of my belief structure built on a cult of mind over matter.
"But you can keep using them if they work for you."
After putting me through a treadmill routine with a camera, the podiatrist broke down my stride on a computer.
Evidently I'm walking and breaking into a run with some etiquette and I'm not a weirdo at all if the probability of normalcy is anything to go by.
What the wise one didn't approve of were my shoes.
The bevel-edged wear on the heels, which prompted some concern on a physiotherapist's table weeks earlier, was also perfectly in synch with normalcy.
Now, those who know me also know that I can be so tight that I'm capable of squeaking when I walk. I'm unashamedly proud of that.
But that isn't why I'm not readily entertaining any thoughts of discarding my two brown and black-painted pairs of boat shoes to buy new merchandise from techno whizzes.
I mean, come on.
How could you ask someone to turf shoes that feel like a part of his body?
It's like asking a bloke to part with a well-worn pair of shin pads or a coffee-stained, culture-growing mug at the office.
But who am I kidding?
Deep down I know she's right.
The niggly injuries have little to do with foot wear or orthotic insoles.
For a bloke who is couple of years shy of 50, age has a lot to do with those calf strains and lower back stiffness after soccer matches on Saturdays, running after thirty-something strikers such as HBS Bank Hawks basketballer Aidan Daly in the third grade.
I accept good shoes, like sound advice, can do wonders for one's posture although I'm mindful I won't play forever.
