By SOREN BUFFICO Daily Planet Slave
In the heat of the sun, her sweaty feet dried quickly.
“I had been sipping on hot cocoa and sitting with one leg up, like I’d had a skiing accident and my leg was broken. Then the clouds parted and something just came over me,” Pedi Sweaty recalled. “I just had to rip off those Uggs, I just had to.”
“I had been sipping on hot cocoa and sitting with one leg up, like I’d had a skiing accident and my leg was broken. Then the clouds parted and something just came over me.” — — PEDI SWEATY Fashion victim
Gingerly removing her shapeless brown booties, a Santa Monica High School student Wednesday became the first local resident to announce she is a victim of the infamous Style-less Amnesius.
In the few minutes before her lunch break ended, Sweaty, 17, stood in front of an audience of five friends and unceremoniously replaced her $500 — she bought them on eBay — shearling Uggs with a pair of rubber flip-flops.
Experts call that “something” that came over Sweaty “the sun.” In less technical terms, Sweaty’s feet were feeling very, very hot.
59F,“At that moment, I looked around me and realized I wasn’t sitting in some cushy ski lodge in Aspen,” Sweaty said. “I’d forgot that I was in Southern California.”
Meanwhile, shots rang out in the Pico neighborhood.
Even while prominent local officials praised her as Santa Monica’s very own Magic Johnson or Michael J. Fox, Sweaty said she had made it a personal goal to eradicate the disease from the city by June.
“We can’t let women accumulate that much sweat around their ankles and feet, it’s appalling” Sweaty said. “Have you seen how pruney their toes have become?”
Until about six months ago, Style-less Amnesius was a rare variety of amnesia that left its victims disenchanted with their surroundings, devoid of basic human responses to heat and cold and, most severely, numb to their fashion sense.
Then it hit Southern California. Sociologists say the area is a prime breeding ground for the disease.
“When mummy and daddy are at work, these youngsters with money in their pockets have no one to look to for guidance except horrendous fashion victims like Jessica Simpson,” said sociological expert, Santa Monica resident and ‘Newlyweds’ hater Brittany Spearz.
Calling Style-less Amnesius the modern-day version of such epidemics as influenza and polio, some experts say the outbreak has attacked warm-weather locales with such fury that the disease could even be fatal to its victims if it extends into the hot summer months.
Unless they see “the sun,” millions of females ranging in age from pre-teen to post-menopausal will be at risk, Slipper said.
Sweaty, her mind finally situated back in Santa Monica where it belongs, agreed.
“Sand and sun go with sandals. It’s common sense,” Sweaty said, “Isn’t it?”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2004. Read the original PDF.