Crust: (v) to form something into a crust.

If all the weird revelations about ourselves would come to the forefront in a single day, we would be so shocked that we might literally roll up in a ball and die.

(Well, it could happen.)

Not so long ago, poolside at a motel, I finished going for a swim.

The sun was shining perfectly—enough to give me a little bit of glow on my face. I was self-satisfied with the little workout I had done in the pool, where I had moved around just short of becoming out of breath.

I also had been recently dieting, so I was very enamored with myself—because I could cross my legs—legs which previously had refused all notions of intertwining.

So sitting there in a pool chair with my legs crossed, I reached down with my hand and rubbed my heel.

To my astonishment, three or four fingers-full of white, dry, dead skin fell off.

It apparently had been there for some time—crusty, like an old miner from the California gold rush.

Loosened by the swim, it was now prepared to identify itself as dead, leave my body, and return to the Earth from whence it came.

I was simultaneously grossed out and intrigued by my skin-rubbing and droppage.

I kept doing it over and over again and more and more skin kept falling off. It wasn’t ugly—it was pure white. But it just kept coming. Or better phrased, going.

I moved up my leg a little more, to my calf, and sure enough—there was more discard.

I became so engrossed in this gross activity that I failed to notice there were three or four people poolside who had turned into an uninvited (and by the looks on their faces) unappreciative audience.

So much dead, crusty skin fell off my feet through this exercise that there was a little pile.

Once I realized I was being observed by the masses, I quickly uncrossed my legs and shuffled my feet around, trying to distribute my skin flakes throughout the grass.

For some reason, my audience found this even sicker.

One lady got up and moved, shaking her head. She had finally found the worst thing she had ever seen in her life. And she was so young and innocent…

But even though I realized what I was doing was not pleasant to those around me, since I was staying at a motel in a strange town and nobody knew me, I persisted.

Aye—the rub.

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