Mis-Matched Shoes

This afternoon I arrived at The College of Lake County at about 1:30.  My plan was to print off and duplicate the fourteen page final exam I was giving to my Elementary Statistics class later in the afternoon.  I had emailed the exam to myself so I could retrieve it on campus.  I have done this over a hundred times with no issue, until today.  The exam document was nowhere to be found on either of the two email addresses I use for such.  I was perplexed as I was absolutely certain that I had emailed it on Saturday.  Sadly, I must not have.

What had been plenty of time suddenly became a tight time frame as I had to return home to retrieve the exam and get back to campus and duplicate the exam.  So, I jumped in my car took off.  En route, I took a phone call from a good friend.  She called to tell me that I could not imagine what she had done.  I could not imagine at all especially since I was preoccupied with my own idiocy.  She related that she got to her workplace this morning and realized that she had two different shoes on.  They were both black.  One was zippered and the other was laced.  We laughed.  I told her of my predicament and we laughed some more.  I joked and told her that she had a matching pair of mis-matches waiting for her at home.

Having done what seems like more than my fair share of bone headed boo-boos.  I cannot recall ever having worn two different shoes.  I like to think that I somehow picked up two different shoes, I would probably notice as I put them on.  If not, I would for sure have noticed after taking a step or three.  The feel or thickness of the soles should be detectable.  The key to prevent wearing two different style shoes is to store the shoes in pairs.

Then I began to think, always a scary proposition, why it was that mis-matching shoes never became a fashion statement.  The avant-garde and the youth are always looking for the new new.  They want to be the first on the block to blaze a new trend.  Amazing matches and mis-matches of colors, plaids atop of stripes, really expensive jeans with holes in them, body piercings to the extreme, and tattoos have all come and gone and come into fashion again over my lifetime.  Hair has gone from WWII neat and trim to Brylcreamed slick, from duck tails to mullets, from Beatles to shaggy dog to shaved bald.  Women have dyed their hair henna color you can imagine including purple and pink.  Anything you can imagine has had its moment in the sun or maybe longer.    

Amid all the whirlwind of fashion, shoes have always matched in color and style.  The only difference tolerated was that mirror image between left and right.  They could be outrageous platforms, sequined high top basketball shoes, ultra-spiked stilettos, and even wearing flip-flops in a blizzard.   Yet, no matter the extremes in design and fashion, shoes have always matched.  Why has this not happened?  It cannot possibly be that I am the first to dream up this fashion innovation.  Can it?

If mis-matched shoes becomes all the rage in the next few years, remember you heard it hear first.