#452 Picking things up with your feet

Embrace your inner monkey.

Dirty crumpled socks, dropped Doritos, rogue pen caps: We see you there. Yes, we see you right in the crosshairs of our toes and we’re about to scoop you up with a good old fashioned foot scrunch.

Bending over is overrated.

Picking things up with your feet is

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

76 thoughts to “#452 Picking things up with your feet”

  1. One of my favorite things to do! My friends are always in awe when they see that my feet are almost as dexterous as my hands!

    1. I believe it truly is an artform! My wife thinks that my daughter and I are freaks of nature because of this superhuman power

    2. Hi Brittany how long have you been able to use your toes and what is the most difficult thing that you have done to date with your feet? :)

      1. Awesome!!! My husband says my family are alien, because we can pickup objects with our toes. The first time he saw my mother pick up a piece of paper and put it in the garbage. He whispered “Did you see that”? My dad was unable to do anything with his feet except walk. Lol

  2. I do this all the time. Why pick things up with your hands when you can do it with your feet? It’s way more AWESOME!

  3. Closely rivaled by: turning off the TV/pressing the buttons on the remote control with your feet.

  4. Hahaha! this is the awesomest post of yours I have ever read! how simple things sound awesome in your writings, and this is unbelievable you noticed really simple things.
    I do pick up things with my feet, even if it fails sometimes.I feel motivated to pick things with my feet! strange!

  5. The thought of retrieving a fallen Dorito with toes made me laugh my gum bubble outta my mouth and onto my keyboard. I briefly debated trying to pick it up with my feet, but I realized that would probably end up being not so awesome.

    1. Once, I was over at an old girlfriend’s house in college, and I spit out my gum (laughing) on her bedroom floor. I immediately picked it up and put it back into my mouth.

      The problem?

      The floor was carpet and she had two cats..

      This was one of the more unpleasant things I have ever put in my mouth.. ugh..

      Needless to say, I spit it out again pretty quickly.

  6. There’s just some superior feeling you get from being able to do this, and knowing that most other beings on Earth can’t. Take that!

  7. Ha! I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now, but this one really made me laugh. After I had ankle surgery I spent months in physical therapy. What was my major exercise? Picking up little rocks with my toes to help get my ankle’s flexibility back!

  8. Ahahahahah, love dis. :D It’s like you’re a superhero. Well a small one (as impossible as it is to be a small superhero pfffft), but nevertheless.

  9. Also awesome: Pinching with your toes! (In a playful, friendly way, of course! ;) )

  10. I use my toes all the time. I love watching my one year old son use his feet for stuff too. For a long time he would fall on his back and use his feet and hands to “read” a book. He also uses his feet to help him get things to him and up when he is sitting (he just manipulated a box of Cheerios this way). Just yesterday he was in his C@zy C@upe and used his feet to pick something up that fell below the car.

    It is so cool to watch this primal instinct at work.

  11. My brother once took out a CD and put a new one in in the car entirely with his feet. =]

  12. I love picking stuff up with my feet. Awsome. I think a close second would be shutting the door with your foot. Almost as awsome but not quite. :)

  13. What a great post! My daughter and I both do this, and today is her 18th birthday. Happy Birthday, Amanda! I got her The Book of Awesome for graduation this year, and she and her friends all love it. Thanks for the daily inspiration.

  14. Hey! First time to come here! Awesome place!
    I am from China, and I know ur blog because my favorite magazine introduces you and ur story. It’s a magazine for English learners.
    Anyway, nice to meet u and ur blog.^^

  15. Hey Neil,

    I’ve been wondering this since wayyy back when I started reading your blog, but where exactly do you find the pictures that accompany your posts? They’re very well photographed and correspond quite well with whatever your post is about that day.

    1. At the end of each post he puts “Photos from Here.” You can click on the blue “here” and it will take you to the page where he got the picture.

  16. You have GOT to keep on top of those rogue pen caps, they’re trouble!

    I fully agree that bending over is over-rated. Once I didn’t feel like bending over to unload my front-loading washing machine, so I unloaded it with my feet. Mmmm… cold wet laundry on the feet… It was kind of a fun challenge. I feel like I embraced my inner monkey that day.

        1. Next you’ve got to try the same thing with a top-loading washing machine! Now THAT would be a monkey-day.

  17. I hope you didn’t listen to that person a few days back, about not posting people’s comments/emails at the bottom of each new post. I love reading those, and am often inspired and touched by the especially heartfelt notes. Please put them back. I thought they were awesome.

    1. I prefer to do that with my head.

      I have, however, mastered the art of opening certain types of doors with my feet when my hands are full (usually when I am taking the tuba home from school).

  18. I have ridiculous feet. When I was younger my mom had received a tip from someone regarding my flat feet. They said that one way to help in correcting this issue was to practice pcking things up with your toes. I’m still a little skeptical but I will always remember how my mom made me spend 30 minutes EVERY night transferring pencils from one tray into another using only my toes. My feet are still very flat but I definitely have skills in the foot dexterity department, which makes it all worth it :)

  19. I have fairly flexible toes also, and will opt to use them instead of bending over. Us middle-agers will use every excuse possible not to bend if we don’t have to.

    I also have the habit of crossing my feet, then inter-twinning my toes. Looks weird, but I find it comfortable. I was hanging from an inner tube in the pool just yesterday and noticed that I had unconsciously folded my toes like that. Weird, but Awesome!

  20. Hunni can’t do this and thinks that it is such a talent that I can use my toes like fingers to pick stuff up.

    It came in really handy when I had herniated discs and then right after surgery. I was not to keen on the grabby thing they gave me at the hospital.

  21. Hahaha totally and completely AWESOME! My other favorite thing to do when my hands are full is opening doors with my feet! People always stare at me like I’m crazy but it works! And just for the fun of it I like to attempt to open really heavy doors with my feet/toes. I need to do some more strength training for those doors though :)

  22. My husband does this all the time…something I didn’t know people did until we got married. I always smile when he does this! I’m glad someone out there finds this an awesome thing too!

  23. My 11 year old son and I have an on going game of copy cat.
    Just yesterday he added waving goodbye with the toes. He picks up his left leg to hip level, so his foot is high. Then waves by curling and uncurling his toes.
    He get a big kick out of seeing this nutty adult copying him.

  24. I lovingly call my talented toes Crab toes!! Not only can I open a door with them, pick something up, and pinch the crap out of someone! Plus, my father and i have identical feet (for better or for worse) so it’s always a big family joke.

  25. Ok, world: You need to know about the awesomest thing of all. Set your Facebook language to English (Pirate). How did I not know about this earlier!

  26. I get the emails every day and I read the one where the commenter said they didn’t like the reader stories at the end, but I think they’re great! It personalises the email and I like the idea that other people are enjoying the book and blog so much they want to take photos and tell you about it! Bring them back!

  27. I do this all the time! my friend would always freak out and call me “monkey toes”. def awesome!!

  28. My best friend cracks her toes with her toes from the other foot…it’s crazy, she uses them just like they are hands. weird…but totally AWESOME!

  29. I have a friend who actually calls toes “nifties” when they’re being used to pick up something. Makes me laugh every time.

  30. I perfected the art of picking things up with my toes when I was pregnant with twins. Still do it all the time, thirteen years later.

  31. Picking up the dropped razor in the shower with your foot when you don’t want to get your hair wet…awesome.

  32. Last week, my fiance and I went swimming at the river when his sunglasses fell off his head. Oh noes!! It’s ok — monkey toes to the rescue. I walked in a grid pattern until I found them. Success!

  33. I’m glad I’m not the only one. My husband calls me monkey toes all the time… but I know it’s because he’s jealous. He can’t pick up anything with his.

  34. On a lazy summers day my cousins and I played an entire game of Monopoly with our feet.
    Banker counted out money due, transferred to her toes, then passed to another foot.
    Epic lazy! :)

  35. Reminds me of something I saw at the “freak show” at the amusement park when I was a kid. Along with the usual bearded lady and tattooed man, there was a woman with no arms who would do stuff with her feet, including autographing pictures with a pen between her toes, and she had elaborate beautiful penmanship!

Comments are closed.