The Thing About Shoes and Harris Women--Part 2

The year is approximately 1987, and the heroine of this story is approximately 6.  It is definitely the middle of winter, and the setting is at the foothill of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  The little girl in question has developed at a tender age a strong love and affection for her shoes.  In particular, she has an enduring attachment to a pair of maroon mary jane style dress shoes that her mother has deemed too small.  When the mother declared the shoes too small, the mother also attempted to remove the shoes from her daughter's possession, either for trash or donation.  The daughter was devastated, so eventually the mother offered a compromise.  The little girl could keep the shoes, on the caveat that she understood that she was no longer allowed to wear them.  If the little girl were to be caught wearing them, the shoes would be permanently taken from her.  The little girl agreed to the bargain.  Soon though, the shoes were crying out to her, demanding to be worn and declaring their vast superiority to any shoes that supposedly fit better.

Then, one day, the little girl saw her opportunity.  Her mother had to go to work early, so the daddy was left in charge of getting the girl to school that day.  The little girl was fairly confident that the daddy, as with so many daddies, would not be aware of the particular arrangement that the mommy and girl had made regarding these shoes.  But, just to be safe, the shoes would be safely tucked in to the backpack as snowboots were the required attire to travel to and from school.

As the plan was laid out, the little girl was struck by a sudden sense of bold fearlessness and decided to take her daring to the next level.  There was a particular boy at school, Hank, who was well known as the bad boy of the second grade.  This boy had of late struck the little girl's fancy, and she felt that her standard pink snowboots were not the attire required to catch this young man's eye.  No, what she needed were her little brother's much more daring black snowboots.  After all, when Sandy in Grease decides to impress her guy, she merely has to change out of her pink and into her black clothes to suddenly become the epitome of cool.  The black boots might be a little snug, but sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of fashion.

So, the little girl donned her brother's boots, tucked her treasured shoes in her backpack, and declared herself ready to go to school.  As anticipated, her daddy was entirely oblivious to the chosen footwear for the day, a stroke of luck that would never have been possible had her mommy been in charge this particular morning.

Whether or not the boy noticed the hip black boots is a fact lost to time.  The school day soon passed, and the little girl boarded the bus to go to the house of the woman who watched the little brother during the day and the little girl for an hour or two after school until their mommy or daddy got off work and came to pick them up.

Another factoid lost to time is whether or not the little girl thought that her daddy was also picking her up from school or just did not plan far enough in advance to think about how to get home from school without getting caught in two pairs of shoes that she should explicitly not have been wearing.  The punishment would certainly have included, amongst other things, the immediate and irrevocable loss of the beloved mary janes--not an acceptable option. Alas, it was her mommy who picked them up, and she was in a hurry because they were meeting friends for dinner that night--another unexpected hiccup.

The little girl devised an emergency backup plan on the spot and implemented it immediately.  The plan consisted of hiding the shoes at the house where they were being kept.  When the mommy got to the door to pick up the little girl and little boy, she naturally told them to put on their shoes as it was time to go.  The girl mustered her most innocent look and explained to her mommy that she did not wear any shoes to school that day.  When questioned, the babysitter was unable to provide solid evidence otherwise.  This was well before the days of cell phones, so the daddy could not be questioned.  After a few minutes of confusion and increasing anger on the mommy's part, the story was accepted.

They were going to have to go by the house to pick up shoes for the little girl, making them late for dinner.  The mommy was very angry, though it was hard to tell if she was more angry at the daddy or the little girl.  In the re-telling of this story, the mommy swears that her bad night was compounded when, on the way to the restaurant, a police officer pulled them over, seemingly to check on the children and make sure that they were okay because it was so apparent that the mother was extremely angry.  While the little girl has no recollection of this particular aspect of the story, she does not doubt its veracity.

As a mother herself now, the little girl regrets the serious trouble that she got her father into that night, for alas he also was unable to verify that the little girl wore any shoes to school, though he felt sure that he would have noticed had she only been wearing her tights, as the girl was claiming.

The little girl did not fess up to her crime until many, many years later when the beloved shoes were long gone and the chances of retribution for her misdeeds were very slim.

She has not lost her love for a good pair of shoes.