Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Springtime, when a man puts his best foot forward by J. G. Fabiano The first sign of Spring means many things to many people. Some believe the changing of the season is confirmed by the first sighting of a robin, or when they are able to put away their heavy winter coats, or when their lawns finally start greening again. I, on the other hand, know it is Spring when I can peel off my winter boots and replace them with the shiny new black Rockports my wife buys me every Christmas. I love these shoes because, even though they look like shoes, they feel like sneakers. I am thoroughly convinced my feet were genetically designed only to have sneakers on them. Well, the long awaited morning finally came, when I could take my new shoes out of the box, lace them up, and face the Spring day comfortable and secure. My wife noticed my change of shoes and also welcomed the idea that Winter was finally over. She made me walk in front of her in order to show the shoes were a perfect fit. My wife has been buying all of my clothes for the past three decades so I was pretty sure everything would be fine. If anyone ever asks me what size shirt or shoe I wear I have to tell them to ask my wife and I know that if I had the responsibility for buying my own clothes my appearance would deteriorate radically. Right before I was about to leave for work my wife asked me to be especially careful and not wreck my new shoes. We were going out that night and she wanted me to look presentable. As soon as she said this I felt a tiny bump under my right shoe. It was as though her admonishment had opened up a crack in the Universe, through which the demons of chaos would creep and work their destruction of my new shoes. Picking up my right foot I found a small present the cat had left in order to begin the breaking in of my new shoes. I picked what was left of it out of the treads on the bottom of the shoe and threw it away. As I did this my wife watched in disbelief that I had not left the house yet and my new shoes already had their first blemish.I went down the stairs into the garage, making sure I would not step on anything that could possibly soil my shoes when a shovel appeared in a place no shovel has ever been seen before. It was in the corner of the garage, resting from the long cold Winter of perpetual shoveling when, all of a sudden, it seemed to push itself away from the wall and descend to the ground as I was walking by, trying desperately to protect my new shoes. In a microsecond the shovel landed on my right shoe and left a long scuff-mark across the toe. I acrobatically spun away, trying to avoid any further damage, only to smash my left shoe into the bumper of my wife’s car that must have just survived an encounter with a deep pothole filled with mud and salt. I knew this because my left shoe now looked as though it been attached to the bumper of my wife’s car when it went through the pothole. Hearing the noise I was making, attempting to go to work, my wife opened the upstairs door, saw me attempting to wipe my shoes clean with an oily rag I used to check the fluids in my snow blower, shook her head, and went back inside knowing my shoes had already begun their rapid descent into destruction but I knew this was the year I was going to prove her wrong. I then carefully walked to my truck, making sure nothing else was in my way, opened the door and delicately climbed into the cab. I smiled to myself because I was sure I had successfully saved my shoes from further assault. I then pressed down on the clutch pedal to start the engine and, as I began to raise my right foot, felt the pedal coming back with it as though the two had been bonded together with super glue. Because the truck was now running I panicked and yanked my foot sharply upward, thus tearing the shoe off my foot and leaving it stuck to the pedal. I then shut off the truck, reached down and pried my new Rockport away from the pedal only to see the unmistakable pink strands of a huge sticky wad of gum. This bothered me for a couple of reasons. First, I do not chew gum and how such a lump of gum got onto my clutch pedal was beyond my comprehension and second, this was also not your ordinary piece of gum. This was a piece of gum the size of a Frisbee and I was not in a hurry to meet whoever it was that had spat it out. Again my wife peered out of the upstairs door, wondering why my truck had started and stopped, and watched as I scraped the huge wad of gum off the bottom of my shoe. This time she slammed the door behind her when she went inside. After I had disposed of the mammoth piece of gum I put my shoe back on my foot, restarted the truck and drove to work. Thinking that little could happen to my shoes during the drive to work I concentrated on the drive and what I was going to do during the day ahead in my classroom. Halfway there I noticed an unpleasant smell had come into the cab. A nasty, chemical smell that reminded me of antifreeze. Hell! It was antifreeze. It seems that the hose that attached the heating coil of the truck to the radiator had decided to leak just enough fluid to cover both my new shoes with glaze of hot, sticky antifreeze, Since my expertise on automobiles had only to do with pumping gas I limped over to a garage near my school, where I hoped my truck could be fixed. From there I called a colleague at school who came and got me and promised to drive me back at the end of the day to pick up my truck. The first thing he asked me as I got into his car was what the hell had happened to my shoes. I thought his question was a bit strange, since my truck just broken down, but then I took a good hard look at my new shoes and saw that they were now coated thickly in oil, antifreeze and mud. I realized that there was no quick fix that would make these shoes look new again. I even looked out the window of the car and imagined the ghostly image of my wife looking down at me, shaking her head yet again. When we got to school I was careful not to step in any large puddles that were left behind by the melting snow in the parking lot. To my surprise I was successful and entered the school without any mishap. I turned to my friend to express my relief that the worst was behind me when my right foot connected with something solid, followed by a crashing sound and the sensation of warm water pouring over my feet. I looked down and realized I had accidentally walked into the janitor’s water bucket while he was mopping the hallway floor and both my shoes, and the feet inside them, were now soaked in filthy black water. This time it was my friend who gave a sad shake of his head and walked away. Meanwhile the janitor was looking at me in amazement. "How could you not see it?" he asked. "Everybody else saw it, how could you not see it?" I apologized as best as I could then squelched off down the hallway, leaving black footprints across the floor he had just mopped clean, expecting any minute to be attacked with a wet mop. I don’t think I have ever dropped as many things as I dropped that day at school. Since I teach chemistry this is not a good thing. Acids, bases, stains and salts all found their way magically onto my shoes that day. The only thing I didn’t drop on my shoes was the kitchen sink but I guess the janitor’s bucket was close enough. When the day ended, and the demons of chaos had finally finished their work on my shoes, I picked up my truck and drove home, glad that the day was finally behind me. I drove into my garage, shut off the truck and went to exit the cab. This time my foot stuck to the brake pedal because of a huge hunk of gum the garage mechanic must have left there. Going up the stairs that led into my house I looked at the shoes that were no longer shiny and black. They looked more like the kind of shoes you would find in the rubble of a house that had been bombed and then burnt to the ground. Not wanting to torment my wife any further I took them off, left them in the garage, found an old pair of sandals and went into the house. The first sign of spring comes in different ways to different people. For my wife it means the inevitable destruction of her husband’s new shoes! The End.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
