What's With the Feet?

Is it really OK to take off your shoes on an airplane and prop your rotten toes up in the faces of the surrounding passengers? If not, please send a tweet to the dork who sat next to me en route to Washington DC today. And one to the guy who sat next to me on the way to Chicago recently.

I hope my recent experiences in this department can be categorized as a confluence of highly unlikely chance events, and not some emerging trend of barefoot flying. If it is the latter, then I have found the threshold of irritation that might keep me on the ground.

Full-body scan or grope; fine. Snot-nosed brat kicking my seat; I can deal. Cardboard chicken with plastic broccoli; bring it on. Uncle Oscar’s lower extremities; no can do.

Are shoes really that uncomfortable? How about the old trick of trying them on before you buy them? Is that too much to ask…that fellow passengers buy shoes that fit well enough to wear while flying?

These people are probably the same ones grousing in the security line about the great inconvenience of walking barefoot through the scanner. Do they want their shoes on or off?

I know some people like feet (Rex Ryan has made news recently for this) while others find them gross. I am not particularly fond nor particularly put off by feet in general. However, if your feet have twisted, hairy toes and jagged, yellow nails covered in fungus, I would prefer not to encounter them in the close confines of airline seating.