Before I headed out on my second round of travel for the
Fall 2013 season I bought a new pair of dress shoes. My old ones looked fine but due to my
irregular step pattern I have worn out the soles to the point that I had little
holes in both heels. Instead of ruining
a perfectly good pair of shoes with all the travel I decided to run my old pair
into the ground and took them in lieu of the brand new pair. It is with these little holes in the each
heel that my adventure with gravel begins.
I had no issues until I arrived at my family’s cabin.
The quarter mile drive from the road to the cabin is all
gravel and the path you would walk from where one normally parks their car to
the front porch is also gravel. This
gravel happens to not be tiny tiny gravel but it’s not larger stones either…in
fact it is the perfect size to be jammed up into a tiny hole in the heel of
some over worn dress shoes. I had quickly
got a stone or two stuck in each of the holes which caused no physical
discomfort but a minor annoyance in that the clicked together as I walked. This caused a sound very similar to Mexican
Jumping Beans (which are neither Mexican nor beans…they are some kind of
insect) jumping around in the plastic cases they are sold in. Every time I stepped they would click. They made me sound like some poor man’s
cowboy who couldn’t afford real spurs. I
didn’t think of it as an issue until I started my round of high school
visits.
High schools – no matter what age you are – have this
incredible ability to transport you back to your own high school days if you
don’t watch out. And that is exactly
what my Mexican jumping bean shoes did. I would walk through very quiet halls (as
everyone was in class) and have every one’s head turn as I walked by. On top of that when I would present to the
students the only noise that was made was when I talked, but I also move around
and walk when presenting. Which meant
every time I stopped talking but kept walking that my shoes would click – like plastic
flamenco shoes. I would see their eyes
keep bouncing from my face down to my shoes as they tried to figure out what
that noise was. The incredible thing
about people in general - and especially
teenagers – is that people are too afraid to ask questions that they may have
that might break the social contract.
Perfectly viable questions like…what is that clicking sound when you
walk. After a little insecure feeling
about it I decided that I just don’t care what they thought and let it slide;
silently cursing the gravel in my show for transporting me back in time to when
I worried about such things. That was my
mistake right there…
…my second adventure has to do with the consequences and
ramifications of cursing gravel and upsetting the gravel gods. So as the travel season wore on so did my
shoes. They became what one would call
talking shoes as the front of the sole started becoming unglued from the actual
shoe. Not the first time it happens but
the leather still looks nice, so I kept them going. Besides I am an admissions counselor and I
can’t afford new pairs of shoes left and right – remember I have a nice brand
new pair waiting for me when I get back!
So there I was back in the cabin trying to get the music app
on my phone to read my mircoSD properly and getting frustrated (it kept reading
all the old songs I already deleted and would freeze up because it couldn’t
locate the file!) Trying to kill two
birds with one stone I was currently unloading the car and working on my cell
phone at the same time. I dropped off my
laptop in the cabin and was walking back towards the car when it happened.
My flapping sole at the front of the shoe flopped down
scrapped the gravel and caused me to trip and fall. With my ninja like speed and cat like
reflexes I put my hands out to break my fall and save the beautiful visage that’s
was bestowed upon me by the divine – so I may embellish a little but you get
the point. Unfortunately for me my phone
was still in my hand. So in the end I
broke my fall….with my phone. And the
gravel got its revenge for me cursing them because the weight of my crashing
down on my phone and the gravels determination to become one with my phone had
caused my screen to shatter. Not only
had all the glass shattered – much like the dreams of many of the students
applying to my Uni – but the screen itself under the glass had shattered and
there was no coming back from that.
The gravel had exacted its sweet, sweet – bitter to me –
revenge. In the end I lucked out getting
a new phone ( I was on a pre paid plan for dirt cheap and they don’t insure
those phones) and got a dirt cheap plan with a phone whose music works like a
charm. I have since gorilla glued my
sole back to the shoe and asked for forgiveness from the gravel. But the gravel gods have the last laugh as I
still have two stones stuck in each heel of my shoe…taunting me as I take each
step.
