My shoes are loud, your face is mean.

Today, I have the loudest shoes.  I have owned these shoes for fourteen years and they have been used specifically for funerals and they have never given me even a hint of trouble.  But I thought I'd switch it up today and wear them to parent-teacher conferences.  It's not really fair for my shoes to only see sadness.  But I knew right when I entered the school building that something wasn't right.  I'd made a very big mistake. 

There's something about my funeral shoes...when the bottoms of them touched the hallway floor, they made a very, VERY LOUD noise.  Noise isn't even the right word...perhaps a ruckus; an insistent ruckus.  I instantly stopped and looked around.  The kids paid no attention to me and took off in a mad rush to the library for the book fair.  I took a couple more steps and had to stop again and look around.  I don't know what I was looking for except another human to nod in my direction, letting me know that my shoes were, in fact, as loud as I was hearing them.  It sounded as if I was walking in shallow water while wearing foot fins.  Nobody was around so I walked as quickly as I could.  Unfortunately, I had a lobby, a very long hallway and a flight of stairs to get through.  The first couple that I passed did not give me a happy nod like I expected, nor did they clap for me or laugh hysterically.  They simply looked at my feet as if they were obnoxious and I knew exactly what they were thinking:  Why did you bring those silly feet to a serious place like this? 

I made it up the stairs and to my relief, Mae's teacher wasn't there.  I had only passed the one judgemental couple so far.  I decided this might turn out okay.  Except I sat there for a whole two minutes or so before Mae's teacher showed up and I started really worrying about my loud shoes.  When she startled me out of my thoughts and asked, "Have you been waiting long?"  all I could muster up was, "I have LOUD shoes.  I'm sorry."  She smiled politely.  When I stood up and walked into the classroom, she laughed a little and I know why, but no further words needed to be passed about my shoe choice.

Next up was Kyler's teacher, which just so happened to be right across the hallway.  I tiptoe-ran to the door and took a seat.  I was summoned into the room just seconds later and Kyler's teacher was very talky so we were able to awkwardly ignore the thunderous noises coming from my feet.

Conferences were soon over and I had to make my way back to the main floor library.  The hallways were starting to fill up now and I was pretty terrified.  I just decided to get it over with as quickly as possible and save all regrets for the drive home.  As I speedwalked my way to the library, my shoes decided to sing a new tune:  high-pitched squeaks.  It got the attention of people that were in classrooms.  I know, because I saw random heads popping out of rooms to see what was going on.  For some reason, I thought that talking over my shoes would help, so as I speed-walked with high-pitched squeaks following me, I also began yelling randomly, "MY SHOES ARE LOUD!!  I HAVE LOUD SHOES!!!"  Oddly enough, people seemed to  understand me better when I did this.  Like, Oh, she knows her shoes are loud so I don't have to look at her strangely.  I can just laugh now and it's okay.

I retrieved the kids from the library and as we headed out the door, I asked them, "Hey, can't you guys hear my shoes?  Because you haven't said anything about them."  Mae said, "Yeah, I knew when it was time to put the books away because I could hear you leaving my teacher's room."  And Kyler said, "Why do you think we ran to the library so fast?" 

And as we stepped onto the paved entryway, my shoes turned quiet again and all was fine the rest of the entire day, even through the grocery store and YMCA, which I thought was really odd.