Also, The Floor Is Still Dirty

You could make a case that I don't really need garden clogs, but one day it occurred to me that I did, and I went to my local garden store and picked out a pair and they went right over my feet like anything, and I hate shopping so I went home with them.

I should've asked a few questions but I don't always know the right questions to ask.

I thought I needed garden clogs because when you're gardening you are going in and out of your house to pee or goof off or grab water, and if you're wearing some kind of shoe you can kick off and slip right back on, you can leave them outside and keep your house clean. I admire people who take their shoes off every time they come in their house, but if I have to untie and tie them it's not going to happen here. So, clogs it is. Mud shoes.

Now. A few things to remember. The reason I don't tie and untie my shoes every time I come in the house is because it's a bother. I deal with the dirt coming in the house in the following manner: I have dirt-colored rugs and hardwood floors with enough grain that you don't really notice how dirty they are, especially if you're nearsighted, don't bother to look, and don't give a shit.

But hey, clogs. Well, they weren't ideal. I got the kind with the little lip of a heel thinking they'd be easier to slip out of, but I can't slip into them without bending over to finger my heel into the lip. So a lot of the time I kinda sorta don't take them off. Let's say most of the time. I garden, I get dirt on my clogs, and I march it through the house, exactly like I would with any other shoe. And when I sit on my haunches to weed, my heels come out of them anyway, so every time I stand up again I have to reinsert. There will be no running in these shoes.

That, however, is not the thing I should have asked a question about. What I should have asked is, if I am squatting with my left shoe in my own shadow and my right shoe in direct sunlight, will I curl up like a human thermocouple?

I have no idea what these clogs are made of, but they conduct heat like copper in lava. I am so unaccustomed to the sensation that I nearly fried my right foot off before it occurred to me to ditch the shoe. Prior to that I was imagining sudden-onset unilateral neuropathy or Foot Shingles.

Because I am who I am, I will continue to wear these clogs until I feel I've gotten my fifty bucks out of them. I didn't get mom's house-cleaning gene but I did pick up Acquired Depression-Era Syndrome from her.

It all reminds me of a story my college chemistry professor told us. He said that researchers at Dupont created a miracle material that was super-thin and super-strong and super-impermeable, and while they were hashing out what it could be used for, someone suggested condoms. Capital idea, they said, and everyone was aroused by the thought of great profits, and they whipped out a few prototypes, and the chairman himself insisted on testing it over the weekend, maybe a few times to make sure.

In he comes Monday morning and throws the box in the trash and says Nope. Why? the team asked. What happened? It's super thin! It's super light! It's super strong!

 

"It squeaks," he said.

Well, we all thought it was pretty funny. I don't know if chemistry professors are allowed to tell stories like that now. Maybe not. I liked him: he was a very good teacher. Ethical, too, in that he waited for me to graduate and move to Boston before calling up and asking if I wanted to go to lunch because he was in town, so we did, and then right out of the fucking blue he pinned me to the wall--he was 350 pounds if he was a gram--and slobbered on me and felt me up, and I wriggled out and said something about having a boyfriend, and he said Sorry and I never saw him again. Because that was the kind of thing that happened, and that was kind of the way we dealt with it.

Also, we wore shoes we could run in.