That One Time Toe Sucking Was a Thing

Once upon a time I decided it would be a good idea to take students out of the country. Costa Rica was the cheapest option and I had never been, so that’s where we went. There ended up being 6 girls, and me, so we referred to ourselves at “The Sexy 7.” I was excited for the trip, but also a bit nervous because most of the girls were seniors, and some of them were a little…wild. They kept making jokes about drinking on the trip, to which I kept replying that I would send them home immediately, to which they would respond with laughter and “yeah right.” Did I mention I was nervous?

Five of the six girls had never been on an airplane before, nor had ever been to a beach. Watching them freak out as the plane took off was priceless, and I was so happy to be a part of that with them. On the flight to Costa Rica, the girls kept talking about all the cute boys they were going to meet. Since we were such a small group, the organization we were traveling with was going to put us with a few other schools for all the tours and hotel stays, and the girls were pumped about this. Upon landing, much to their chagrin, and my immediate relief, we discovered that we were partnered with middle schools - my girls were by far the oldest.

In spite of this, we had tons of fun hiking volcanoes, ziplining, swimming in natural hot springs, walking through cloud forests, and hanging at the beach. It was going better than I could have hoped until one day, a teacher from one of the partner schools said that kids were talking about alcohol being passed around and consumed in the hotel rooms, and everyone immediately looked to me since I had the oldest kids. We all had to go do room and suitcase checks, and I was ecstatic to come up empty-handed. My girls swore they were following the rules and divulged who they thought the culprits were, but none of the teachers ended up finding anything.

A couple nights later we were at a beautiful beachfront hotel in Jacó. The rooms formed a U shape around a pool and hot tub, on a huge patio where we would eat our meals, overlooking the ocean. I enjoyed this set up because we teachers could hang out and relax as our kiddos were swimming right next to us, instead of having everyone all separated and having to run around checking on them. Everything was going great until we heard a loud shriek, followed by raucous laughter coming from a huddled group of kids, among which were my girls, except for one, I, who was sitting with the teachers and chaperones. I glanced up from her phone long enough to look at me and say, “J just got her toes sucked.”

Upon hearing this declaration, all eyes were immediately on me, and I just stared at I, trying to comprehend what she had just told me.
“Um…what?”
“J got her toes sucked. It’s a big deal. Everyone at South (the school I worked at) is doing it, but J hasn’t been able to find anyone to do it to her until now.”
“Um…what??”
“Yeah, she’s been asking all these different guys for a while, and finally convinced one of those middle schoolers to do it. I don’t really get it and think it’s gross, but she’s really been wanting it.”

I could still feel all the eyes of the other teachers and chaperones still on me, waiting to see how I would respond, and was way too embarrassed to look at any of them as I called J over. She skipped up to our table happily:
“Miss! I just became a woman!”
“…what?”
“I just got my toes sucked!”
“J, what are you talking about?” She pulled up her social media accounts and showed me posts from weeks and months past where she would include a photo of freshly manicured toes with a caption “Who’s trying to suck these?” I was so shocked and weirded out, I didn’t know what to do.
“J, you cannot do that! That is not appropriate!”
“Miss, come on. It’s my vacation too, and I deserve a little fun! It’s not a big deal.”
(With all eyes still on me), “Yeah, it kind of is, especially since they are so much younger than you. You obviously are beautiful, and older, and popular, and know that you can use that to get them to do whatever you want, but you just can’t. You have to stop. No more.”
“Fine.”

One woman in particular, the mother of one of the boys on the trip, was especially upset over this turn of events. Angrily she said, “No wonder so many of these kids are getting sick!” I definitely thought the situation was super weird and embarrassing, but come on.

Upon returning to the states, I asked a bunch of other students at South about this whole toe sucking fad, and they confirmed that it was a thing - apparently everyone was doing it.

Later the girls had a good laugh as they revealed to me that there had been much more toe sucking on the trip, with the main sucker being the concerned mother’s son!

I had been prepared for all sorts of issues on that trip: drugs, drinking, sex, but toe sucking was definitely not one of them. In the grand scheme of things though, I guess I’m glad that was the worst of it, but wow, kids are weird.