Shoes. They’re functional, sometimes fashionable, and all too often underfoot. Especially in the garage. It’s house policy to leave our shoes there. Otherwise, Hubby tracks dirt in, which he doesn’t notice. He’s also oblivious to dropped food and pens; to burnt-out light bulbs and the overflowing kitchen garbage can.

After decades of training, he now kicks off his shoes before entering the house. Usually at the base of the step-up to the door, where they’re a hazard when stepping down until I toss them to the left onto his three-foot mound of cowboy boots, sandals, loafers, and running shoes.  My shoes are lined up on the right—one pair of wellies, one pair of snow boots, one pair of all-weather mocs, my house slippers and the pair I wear to work.

Storage. That’s my problem with Hubby’s shoes. They pile up. They drift. They wander into places where they shouldn’t be. How many times have I tripped over one? I adore Hubby but I’m a neatnik, he’s not, and as poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said: Into every life some rain must fall. Some days must be dark and dreary, you can’t have it all.

What was I thinking that day I stepped down from the house into the garage without turning on the light? My ankle twisted and foot slipped off an uneven lump of shoe. I pitched forward like an axed tree, in slo-mo, klaxons wailing, newscaster narrating, “She’s go o o o ing dow ow ow ow n n n n….” and landed, palms flat on the concrete, elbows pumping mini pushups—boing boing boing—till I went to ground, cheek on dirty concrete, time zipping back to normal.  

Wow! What a save! I could have smashed my face. I lay there and caught my breath. Gingerly, I lifted up onto my elbows, rotated my wrists and ankles, rolled over slowly to squat, and pulled myself upright, a little dizzy. As relief faded that nothing was broken, righteous indignation welled up at Hubby, the sentences of my soon-to-be-delivered rant writing themselves before my mind’s eye—HOW MANY TIMES do I have to ask? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP leaving your damn shoes in the line of traffic? DON’T YOU CARE—I looked down at the undeniable evidence of his wrongdoing—my shoe.

Oh! The irony. I burst out laughing. Into each life, some stupid must fall. Some days are humbling. You can’t know it all.