Squeak

I have a pair of black, heeled loafers. (Shoes, in case you're wondering - not dirty, barefoot slouchers.) And, they squeak when I walk. Actually, only one of them does. Every time I step on my right foot, I squeak.

When I walk down the hall - step, squeak, step, squeak - I think of Toon Shoe from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. There's no way Jessica Rabbit would be caught dead in a pair of squeaky shoes, I imagine.

I work in a quiet office which means everyone can hear me coming. The only good news is there's generally no one around to hear me.

I keep thinking, I need to get them into a shoe repair shop. I've had these shoes for years and love them. They're comfortable and they go with practically everything. I thought maybe the heel on my right shoe was loose and could be fixed with a little glue. To test my theory, I took it off as I was walking down the hall in my office building. There was no one around. I continued on wearing only my left shoe.

Step, squeak, step, squeak - imagine my surprise when my bare right foot kept squeaking!

This confused me, so I took off the left shoe to test the bizarre and briefly entertained hypothesis that I had a defective right foot. The squeaking stopped. Aha! It wasn't the heel of my right shoe at all but was the leather in my left.

I stood there in my Aha! moment, in my bare feet with two dress shoes in my hands just as I noticed I was standing outside the dentist's office and the receptionist was staring right at me.

Aha! I waved back to her with a shoe. I quickly dropped my shoes to the floor, slipped them back on my feet, and hustled back to my office.

- step, squeak, step, squeak, step, squeak-