Toes as Evidence

I PASSED A MAJOR MILESTONE in my life 33 years ago this month when a beautiful lab assistant took my footprints. I remember the footprints because I had never been fingerprinted and no matter how powerful the soap, I just couldn't remove the ink from my toes. I just let it sweat away. My employer, the US Air Force, needed my toeprints because feet often survive aircraft accidents since they're encased in combat boots. If you've little evidence, a foot can verify who was sitting where when metal hits concrete at 400 miles per hour. I had one of those 400 mph 400 above ground level jobs and every year, the flight surgeon would flick through my records and ask, "Are these your feet?" If I affirmed, I initialed the footprints. Today, I don't have footprints but the Garda National Immigration Bureau have my fingerprints. And today, I noticed how my toddler has toes that look like mine. It's a genetic thing--her second through fourth toes will grow to be around the same length. And when a background check asks for identifying features, she can say, "I have my dad's feet." I'm off to get footprints made again because she might want to be a pilot too.

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