Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Aug. 6, 2012
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Toe gymnastics at Walmart I was almost finished with this week’s column when Marilyn asked me what I was writing about. I told her it was a public service announcement, a kind of cautionary tale about two guys who had something in common. One was Michael Wyatt, a 51-year-old Arkansas man, and the other was Joey Leaphart, a 43-year-old Georgia resident. Wyatt is in prison now, and Leaphart has been released but will probably wind up in prison again at some point, due to what they have in common, which is an obsession with ladies’ feet. Wyatt, back in the ‘90s, gained access to female feet by posing as a door-to-door podiatrist, and more recently simply approached them in clothing stores and complimented them on their toes. Leaphart, on the other hand, was apprehended after he approached a young lady in a Columbia County, Georgia Walmart and explained that he would like to ... uh ... do whatever it was he liked to do with her toes because he was working for the America’s Funniest Home Videos TV show, and of course everybody knows how hilarious those toe sucking pranks are. He said he’d pay for all of her purchases up to $100 if she’d participate in the “prank.” Suffice it to say that none of the characters in either story are what you would consider very bright, and in fact the victims seemed to have the intelligence of a brussels sprout, but that was not the point of my column. I merely wanted to let folks know that Leaphart is still at large, due to the fact that the young lady at Walmart actually gave him permission to suck her big toe. He is undoubtedly cruising other Walmarts in the Southeast, looking for more, and greater toes to conquer. I thought my readers would appreciate the warning, and at least keep a sharp eye out when they walk behind one of those clothing racks in their local department store. It was a noble idea, but Marilyn’s response was: “THAT’S NASTY, AND IF YOU WRITE ABOUT IT, YOU’LL SLEEP ON THE COUCH UNTIL CHRISTMAS!” She suggested that I write about the Summer Olympics in London. Or, if I couldn’t make it to London, I could write about them in Piedmont, or right here in Centre. I said I wasn’t a big Olympics fan, but I’d try. The 2012 Summer Olympics include some really goofy sports, which I find it hard to take seriously. Like badminton, for example, which is typically played by elderly participants in electric wheelchairs. And water polo, which is called water polo because except for the fact that it has no horses, no saddles, no helmets, no boots and no mallets, is exactly like polo. Oh yeah, and it’s also played in a swimming pool. I’ve never watched a water polo game, but I believe they do have little inflatable horsies to add realism. I did make a concentrated effort to watch the United States basketball team take on the Tunisian Flying Hoopsters, but I soon lost interest. Oh sure, the Tunisians managed to keep it close for most of the first half, but that was only because the USA professionals were too busy texting their girlfriends to put up much defense. I changed the channel, but learned later that the coach hollered at his first-stringers and replaced them with his bench warmers, who managed to win the game by a final score of 111 to 63. Talk about drama! Granted, I was happy that Michael Phelps won more swimming medals, but then again when a swimmer is a six-and-a-half ft. giraffe, all he has to do is fall into the pool and he’s already halfway to the other side. I’d just about given up on the Olympics when I heard about Kim Yoo-Suk. Kim Yoo-Suk is a 30-year-old South Korean pole vaulter, and when the track and field fans start chanting his name, it is very discouraging. Shortly thereafter I heard about the 23-year-old Chinese trampolinist, Dong Dong (pardon the redundancy). These athletes, who have obviously overcome great obstacles, namewise, to succeed, encouraged me to see if I could find any more interesting Olympics athletes’ names. It might even make the games ... well, almost tolerable. Here are some actual 2012 Olympic athlete’s names: • Sparkle McKnight, track and field, Trinidad • Werner Muff, equestrian, Switzerland • Victoria Poon, swimmer, Canada • Fanny Babou, swimmer, France • Lars Boom, bicyclist, Netherlands • Imran Butt and Rehan Butt, two Pakistani hockey players • Kathryn Fudge, handball, Britain • Destinee Hooker, volleyball, United States • Tim Lips, equestrian, Netherlands • Pops Mensah-Bonsu, basketball, Britain • Mohamed Mohamed, wrestling, Egypt • Another Mohamed Mohamed, soccer player, Egypt • Diju V., badminton, India • Aichen Wang, sailing, China, and • Jack Butland, soccer player, (No, not from the land of But. From the land of Eng) Speaking of names, we can only hope that nobody on the International Olympic Committee ever gets wind of the names Wyatt and Leaphart, and of their department store escapades. The last thing we’d want to see in the 2016 Olympics would be those two loons performing in the 10 Meter Synchronized Toe Sucking Event. |