Random Question #3

The first time you had your shoes taken off - how surprised were you to see that you still had toes?

Today's random question generated by blogger. Where to start on this one. O.K. so I don't remember the first time I had my shoes taken off (who does?) and I don't recall ever hearing of such a story from my mom (perhaps I should ask her) but it did remind me of other times when I was young and my shoes were involved. So here goes.

Story One: I must have been about 4 years old because I wasn't in school, we were living in Alabama and I was at the bank alone with my mother. Either we were standing in line for a long time at the bank or I had been sitting funny in the car but my foot had fallen asleep and was now waking up so it was all tingly. I recall not understanding what was wrong with my foot and so I sat down on the floor in the bank to take off my shoe because I thought perhaps there were some flys or bees in there buzzing around and they needed to be released. I remember being very disappointed that they were not in my shoe.

Story Two: I was a little bit older but not much because we were still living in Alabama. But I think I was in kindergarten so I must have been 5 years old. My mom was in the hospital because she had a very bad stomach ulcer so my dad was taking care of us. Either I was taking a long time getting my shoes on or he thought I needed help so I remember sitting on the couch and my dad trying to put my shoes on me. The problem was that even at that young age, my OCD tendancies and my peculiar skin sensitivities had emerged. So part of putting on my shoes was making sure that the seam of the sock that runs along the top of my toes was in the exact right spot so that it didn't irritate my feet. My dad did not know that the line needed to be perfect so he was just putting on my socks basically the way they needed to be and putting on my Cabbage Patch velcro shoes. I remember thinking that this was something special that my dad was doing to help me and so I should just let him do it and then I could go back and fix it later on when he wasn't looking. I was worried about hurting his feelings. Hmmm. That probably speaks volumes about my relationship with my dad. It also strikes me that we are not giving enough credit to the four running around my house as to how much goes on in their little heads and how aware they are of their surroundings.

O.K. this has gotten a little to deep so I'm done for right now.