A tale of two feet

It started with a loogie.

I was walking from my car to the allergist office this morning for my weekly allergy shots, sporting the cutest little pair of camel-colored flats, when my right foot slid out from under me, like a kick in a chorus line. Standing there like a tightrope artist, I quickly steadied myself, avoiding a parking lot tumble. When I looked to see what had cause me to slip – and making sure it wasn’t under my other foot – I saw it.

A loogie. Smeared from my step and .... substantial.

I just gagged a little at the recall as I type this.

<shudder>

I wiped my feet at the office door and tried to be generous in my reaction. Good thing the perpetrator of that is at the allergist, I sweetly reasoned.

Is it possible for shoes to be traumatized? Because these girls are gonna need some therapy after what they done went and stepped in.

Anyway, I went on with my day. It was a long, busy day with some highs and lows. But I did the best I could with the time given me and made my way home.  Once I got home, I changed out of my flats, slacks and sweater set and into shorts, a tee and white sneakers, suitable for the many errands I needed to run this evening. 

While out and about, I popped into Payless Shoe Source  in search of black flats. I have about seven pairs of black flats already, but I wanted shiny flats that would look cute with skirts.

And I wanted them cheap.

So I slipped off my sneakers and slipped on a pair. While I was admiring the choice in the ground-level mirror, I heard a vociferous woman in the next aisle proclaim, “Oh, lawd, I had ta gets outta dat aisle cause of da smell.

“Lawdy, lawdy.”

Apparently that would be the reek of my bare feet and/or the sneakers that house those sockless suckers.

Thanks for pointing it out. To everyone. And the Lord.

Bitch.

It’s freaking Payless, lady. I’m pretty sure these are not the worst feet in the house. By a long shot.

So I stuffed my stinkers in my sneaks and left with a cute and soon-to-be defiled pair of shiny black flats.

My next stop was the grocery store. As I was loading my bags into the car, I stepped squarely on a pile of gum that had been spat by some asshat earlier in the day. Gooey strings of gum tethered my right shoe to the blacktop. I slipped both my shoes off, dumped a Target bag’s contents into the seat and set my offending shoe on the bag to avoid gumming up the floor mats.

Being barefoot in that enclosed space for the ride home had me thinking that maybe the Payless patron had a point after all. I rescind my bitch tag from earlier with apologies.

Finally, I was home and was met at the door by an overly enthusiastic dog while trying to juggle a gummy shoe, four bags of groceries and a 12-pack of Diet Rite. The sodas started to slip from my grip and I was afraid they would crash on my toes, so in a swinging motion toward the kitchen counter, I was able to land the sodas  … and drop everything else, including a tub of hummus and a 64-ounce jug of shower spray directly on my right pinkie toe.

Harmless? My pinkie toe would beg to differ.

Collecting myself - and then my groceries  off the floor - I soldiered on.  I let the dog out (explaining his intense enthusiasm at my arrival) and placed my stinky, gum-riddled shoe in the freezer. Yes, the freezer. Ten minutes later, I scraped the gum right off. And then tossed that nasty fiend and its mate in the washer.

That is exactly what it looks like: My stinky, gummy shoe … and the food I feed my family.

I stepped out on the back deck to play with the dog, who was racing the fence line, barking at every passing walker in the neighborhood. My attention was on him and not where I was stepping, but I immediately felt the stab on my left foot and stopped midair before pressing whatever it was further into my flesh. I pulled a patio chair to me and sat down to see a splinter barely piercing the skin … and by splinter I mean stake of wood that Van Helsing would gladly use to impale Dracula.

If I were a vampire, I would be undead no more.

My sweet generosity of the morning was gone, and as I pulled that splinter out, I let out a torrent of swearing that I will not repeat here. Let’s just say that if I were writing rhyming poetry, it would have involved stanzas with ducks and brother truckers.

It’s not so much that it hurt – I had caught myself before I stepped down on it and really rammed it in – but it was pure frustration. I hobbled in and cleaned the puncture site with soap and peroxide. No blood, no mess.  Can’t even tell where it struck. Walk it off, I told myself. And I did … right into the squish of a hairball.

Seriously.

Look, life’s like that sometimes. It’s messy. It smells bad. It tries to trip us up and slow us down. But we have to look ahead. We have to put one foot in front of the other … no matter what we step in or what gets dropped on us along the way.