Green Toe Moe

I was a pretty complicated 10th grader… I had never really believed in homework and so my record of completing take home assignments had always been pretty sporadic. I use the term “didn’t believe in” not as nicer way of saying I was lazy and therefore didn’t want to do homework, but because it’s the most accurate description of the facts. I had a personal philosophy that conflicted with the idea that I should be forced to focus any of my free time on school assignments that I deemed to be “busy work”.

By the time I got to 10th grade I basically stopped doing class work as well. When the teacher was talking, I’d sit and listen, but that’s it. I wouldn’t actively participate unless the subject really interested me.

That decision, (along with some actually semi-legitimate concerns), landed me in therapy where it was decided that what I really needed, was Ritalin.

I had to take one pill in the morning before school, and one pill in the afternoon during lunch. Half the time I didn’t actually take the pills, I would just pretend to, but that’s another story… the point is, Moe Greene would always go with me to the nurses office at lunch to get my pill. He did this for two reasons [1] He had nothing else to do, and [2] we had a crush on the nurse.

This wasn’t the typical school nurse… She was only 22 or 23 years old, not that much older than we were at the time. She refused to let us call her by her last name. She was not "Ms. Thompson", she was just "Diane". And she didn’t talk to us like students either, she talked to us like friends. She told us about her weekend, (which usually consisted of bar hopping), dates she went on, and which students she thought were annoying.

Another reason we lusted after Diane was because she fit into the “attractive yet obtainable” category… She had blond hair, but with dark roots… She had beautiful green eyes, but her nose was a little big for her face… She had athletic legs and a shapely ass, but her chest was flat… She was nice to talk to, but she wasn’t terribly bright either… So like I said, she was attractive but her flaws (combined with her flirtatious nature) made us feel like we might actually be able to get somewhere with her.

We were smitten.

We would eat our lunches as fast as we could, then leave the cafeteria and go hang out at the nurse’s office with her. We’d over analyze every comment she made. We’d argue over who made her laugh more, and debate which one of us had a better shot at getting in her pants.

Since we didn’t really have any experience wooing an older woman, our attempts to make ourselves look cool basically consisted of trying to make each other look bad. Diane always enjoyed listening to us argue and make fun of each other, which only encouraged us. We quickly went from making fun of each other’s clothes to telling embarrassing stories.

Eventually things got a little out of hand and Moe crossed the line… He brought up the fact that I actually had a girlfriend and was therefore, not technically available.

“You have a girlfriend? You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend,” Diane responded in an accusatory tone.

That really pissed me off. I had to strike back… I decided to bring up the green fungus that had been growing on Moe’s big toenail for the better part of 3 months.

“Come on, let Diane have a look at it Moe, she’s a professional…”

Moe was, of course, horrified. He already had a phobia about taking his shoes off in public, so the idea of exposing his toe issues to the woman he was lusting after was down right unthinkable... He left the office in defeat. I won that round.

We both assumed that would be the end of the issue. He would never bring up my girlfriend again, and I would never bring up his toe fungus. But for whatever reason, Diane kept bringing it up. It was like the incident had suddenly turned on her “nurse” switch, and she started to act very professional around us.

She asked about it everyday. And everyday Moe would decline to let her look at it. Suddenly our informal flirtation sessions with Diane had become like a visit to the dentist.

Finally, Moe and I decided that he would have to just go ahead and let her look at his foot so we could get back to the way things were. The school year was almost over and we were running out of time to make any actual progress. So Moe relented. One day he pulled off his shoe, and peeled away his sock.

Diane’s reaction went something like this:

“Oh wow. You guys weren’t exaggerating, that is really, really…......... gross.”

She was visibly uncomfortable and didn’t want to touch his foot. At one point it looked like she might throw up.

“I think you need to see a doctor or some sort of specialist… I don’t know what that is…”

And that was pretty much how the relationship ended. The days of her flirting with us were over. It felt like we had somehow managed to sneak into this really cool adult night club, but now we’d been caught by the bouncers and thrown out.

Looking back on it now I can see it wasn’t just Moe’s toe fungus or my girlfriend that ruined what we had... When she flirted with us and we reacted by making fun of each other’s shoes, that probably only served as a reminder that even though there wasn’t that much age difference between us, there really actually was.

Of course… it’s a lot easier and a lot funnier to just blame Moe's disgusting toe fungus.