Y’all.
I just figured out that I’ve been doing something dumb, not once or twice, but regularly for about ten months. You know, because more is more.
It all started with the interview process for my current teaching gig, a process that began last spring. During it, I was asked to teach two classes so that various administrators and educators could observe my teaching style. At that point in our lives, LCB’s business schedule was unusually demanding and stressful, a condition that ricocheted, of course, into my life as well. For the purposes of this story, the important part of this was that it left me with a mere twenty minutes at the end of some errands to shop for shoes to go with my black pant suit I was planning on wearing for the lessons. I’d worked solely out of the home the last few years prior to this, doing a little freelance work and mainly just running around barefoot, pregnant, and chasing after small people, so I didn’t really have the appropriate footwear for life in professional or even civilized society. Thus, I needed a pair of respectable-looking shoes.
After my other errands, I fled to a T.J. Maxx en route and literally grabbed these, the first acceptable pair I saw, and bought them.
I wore them for the two lessons the next day, and for a subsequent interview the next week, and since last fall, I’ve been wearing them consistently two or three times a week.
And so a few days ago, I sat down on our little trampoline, positioned low to the ground, and, as I was conversing with LCB, somehow the toe of one of the shoes I was wearing caught my eye, and I noticed that it was slightly different from the other shoe’s toe.
I stared.
I lifted up my pant legs, which were bootcut and almost touching the ground, to look closer.
I stared for a really, really long time, long enough to finally stop LCB mid-diatribe. (Yes, the pretty-boy car, the one whose purchase he has rued since the day he purchased it, was giving him more trouble, thus inspiring him to spew forth his myriad of frustrations over said vehicle.)
I was dumbstruck.
Y’all, for the better part of a year, I’ve been walking around wearing two different shoes, struck completely oblivious to the obvious. Y’all know I have footwear issues, but seriously.
Look at the difference in the sides. In all this time, how could I not have noticed?
I feel now like I could potentially be one of those people that goes on a road trip, stops in Kansas somewhere for a bathroom break, and doesn’t realize until Santa Fe that I’ve left behind one of the small people, LCB, or even my vehicle.
In my mind, I went through all the places where I’ve worn the shoes, wondering if people had noticed. I figured I was probably safe in my one of my classes, for instance, because I typically stand or walk around in that class, which allows my pants to virtually cover my shoes, but in another class, I have a habit of sitting atop a desk, thus exposing more of them.
So I wore the shoes to that class again and, at the beginning of the period in question, I stood so that just the toes of my shoes peaked out from under my pant legs and asked if anyone noticed anything about my shoes.
At first, no one said anything. Then, one of them helpfully offered, “They’re clean,†and I heard someone else point out that they looked “shiny,†both saying it as if it was an anomaly of sorts for me.
I’m telling you, ask a question of high schoolers, and brace yourself for the revelation that might follow.Â
The long and the short of it is that they noticed the differences right when I lifted my pant legs a couple of inches, but claimed not to have noticed the differences until I pointed them out.
I’m not entirely convinced, however.
For one thing, they are truly one of the nicest classes I’ve ever had. Furthermore, they’re very grade-conscious. And, several of them are highly talented in the dramatic arts. Highly.
Then again, I’m probably overreacting. I bet they never really noticed. Who pays much attention to shoes anyway?
See how easy it is to be oblivious to the obvious?
Just call me The Master.