If you’ve got a thing for feet, then maybe you should come live here with me

My apartment building is quite large, compared to places I’ve lived in before.  102 units, in various sizes & configurations.  Studios, 1 & 2 bedrooms.  This is a view of #502, the apartment directly above me.  It bears the distinction of being an exact copy of mine. 

I know because I snuck in & snooped around when it was vacant a couple months ago.  (They always leave vacant units unlocked, as no one can get into our building without a key.)

It’s the same size, same layout, same paint scheme (Antique White, Basic Buff & Summer Suede), same kitchen, flooring (carpeting in livingroom & bedroom, wood parquet floor in dining room, rust tile in kitchen & bathroom) as mine.  All it’s missing is my stuff.  Okay it’s carpet is newer, which ticks me off some, but it’s also $40.00 a month higher in rent, for the simple fact it’s on one of the top 2 floors.

As I sit here this morning typing this, wearing a t-shirt and thin pair of drawstring pants, it’s a balmy 70F in my place and 18F outside.  I can’t remember the last time I heard my furnace either.  I’ve only lived in 2 other apartments in my 35 years in Pittsburgh, but in both of those places I couldn’t escape a chill in the air or some VERY cold floors if the temps outside dipped below 25F.  But in both of those other places, I lived on the top floor which you would think would be warmest, but wasn’t.  Here, my apartment is nestled somewhere near the middle.  Snug as a Doug in a rug, you might say.  And my bare feet are toasty warm.

And speaking of bare feet… podophilia is the medical term for someone with a foot fetish.  You hear about those types in movies or on tv, but I’ve never met anyone who admitted to being one.  Then again, if you’ve got a foot fetish I guess you don’t go around bragging about it. 

I wouldn’t, it seems a bit out there even if it is pretty harmless. 

(I’m reminded of a very old episode of “Love, American Style”, a man with a fetish for women’s hands meets a woman who won’t be seen without her gloves on.  It seems she has a phobia of exposing her bare hands.  They fall in love & marry, and on their honeymoon she comes to bed wearing sexy lingerie… gloves!)

I suppose the reason I’m bringing all this up is because I am giving serious thought to going upstairs, banging on #502’s door and demanding to see his carpeting.  Like I said earlier, I was up there when it was vacant, and noted the newer carpeting and even took a picture of it.  It’s plusher than mine.  But when I’m walking around my apartment, I only hear the occasional scrunching or wooden squeak if I’m going back & forth in the non-carpeted areas, my bathroom or kitchen or dining room. 

In that unit above mine, it can be days without a sound—maybe the man is an airline pilot, gone for days at a time.  And then suddenly, like this morning, I’ll hear him.  Right above my sofa, where I thought was carpeting.  It’s not a shuffle of slippers, or clomping of shoes.  I swear I can hear the bones in his feet crack, then the thud of one heel hitting the floor, now the other; next are the thumps of his feet like he’s rocking them back & forth before standing up and beginning his journey.  He’ll cover every square foot of that apartment this morning too.  Lots of snaps crackles & pops.

I can’t help but wonder WHY I’m hearing what I’m hearing, and if all these footsteps would excite a foot fetishist.  What’s he doing up there, giving tours?  I’m guessing he wears a size 10… no, 10 1/2.

Waitaminute—it stopped.  For all I know, there’s a peephole in my ceiling and he’s on his hands & knees now, squinting thru his floor and reading this as I type.  Why can’t people be more normal, like me!