Unsurprising as it may be, I have
once again been deceived. The weather
person on my favorite news channel (with his dapper tie and most convincing
morning smile) repeatedly lies through his teeth.
Today was supposed to be cloudy but
warm. The forecasters did not mention
the monsoons which made their brash way through Souderton at roughly 1 pm. (Precipitation which caused hammering buckets of
moisture to pound insistently on the school’s metal roof, sounding like a village of small
cobblers at work on a veritable mountain of tin shoes.) As I recall, the weather person prophesied these monsoons as a "chance
of spotty showers"…. The analysts additionally failed to mention the gales of wind that
played at lifting me off the bench while I sat nobly and foolishly providing
medical coverage for the softball and baseball games at school this
afternoon.
65 degrees MY FOOT. It felt like a clean 36 degrees with the added
attraction of wind chill. To think I
actually packed a tube of sunblock. Pining
for my parka (or at least a decent stadium blanket), I was ill-prepared with
only my Rehoboth Beach sweatshirt.
Adding insult to injury, my uncooperative hair after the final pitch was
twice the size as before I walked out
to the freezing tundra of our school fields. (It was a sporting look with the blue skin hue of hypothermia.)
Shivering fashion faux pas that I
was, I was NO MATCH for the amazing sight I witnessed as I spied my coworker
plod across the lawn. I could not
contain my amusement or a proper sense of decorum.
My friend was wearing the most
sensible and overtly ridiculous shoe-coverings I have beheld in over 30 years. My grandfather wore the same exact model in the 1970s over
his church shoes when instructed by my grandmother to place floral arrangements
on newly mown gravesides. Grammy herself
wore a women's pair over her sturdy work shoes for gardening after rain. She called them her rubbers. (We’re not even going
to GO there.) I really had no idea
these handy slip-on treasures were still being manufactured. I
cannot imagine there is much demand.
These slick black protective shoe
sleeves are Herman Munsteresque
(without the height) or more accurately – a stretchy strapless version of those
cheap plastic shoes I would force onto the inflexible feet of my dolls in the
mid-1960s.
I eventually confessed my amusement
to my sensible friend (brave fashion-senseless soul that he is) and begged for a close-up shot of one of his unwieldy but well-protected
feet. You can see by the fantastic photo below, he was more than accommodating. He and his wife (at her PRUDENT request) choose to remain nameless in this post!
However, this one photogenic
viewpoint cannot do justice to the
whole package. You see, the rubber shoe covers were made SO
much more memorable by the wearing of shorts
with the ensemble. And for that, you
need the view from the back. (see below-
photo credits for this one are courtesy of a similarly amused onlooker with a
better vantage point)
I do gratefully thank my coworker for
providing this wonderfully necessary distraction. It was much more fun than the overzealous shivering in which I was engaged before he walked by to provide such
great fodder for me.
With a barely detectable degree of remorse from
laughing so
heartily at my poor friend’s prudent choice of shoe protection, I did finally glance down at my own feet (donned in my carpool duty rain boots) and realized
I really had no business poking fun at someone else.
I'd like to blame the weatherman for both of my
indiscretions.
