Goofy shit

Sometimes, some really goofy shit pops into my head. F'rinstance:

It's said that the measurement unit of a 'foot' came about because it was the length of an actual person's foot. So... if a mile is made up of 5280 feet, does that mean some poor bastard had to walk heel-to-toe for a mile, counting how many times he had to put a foot down? If so, I gotta wonder how many times he had to start over again when he lost count. Were there people around, deliberately trying to fuck up his counting ("873. 1,719. 88. 3,944.")?