SENSIBLE FOOTWEAR

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.