I never knew I had flat feet until the girlfriend/wife (sometime either before or after the marriage, but I don't remember when, so I err on the side of calling her both although she cannot for whatever reason be both) pointed it out to me on some occasion with some surprise. I suppose she had never really looked at my feet before. She seemed startled. I was a little embarrassed.
She's an anatomist, so I take her observation as fact.
I hoped I had flat feet when I was a lad because I had heard that flat feet disqualifies you for military service. I didn't want to serve the military. I wouldn't have liked the killing or, on another level, the showering with other men. I wondered how one could fake flat feet, but decided instead on being a conscientious objector, although later research showed that you really, really had to prove you hated war. No spending the entire conflict with the Quakers for me!
However, since 20 to 30 percent of the population have flat feet, it would be moronic for the military to refuse those afflicted with this condition. They've even done studies about it, probably more to assuage old officers who believe in old officers' wives' tales, than to find proof of disqualification. However, it must be said, I have more or less well flat feet, while some folks with flat feet are in a lot of pain. Damn you fallen arches! How can you be so cruel?
Yet I run. I run free! My flat feet, my flat right foot, my flat left foot, & me.
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