Styling on Shoes

---

I am thankful I’ve achieved one of my life goals!  I got Keds!  All the snooty kids wore Keds when I was in school.  Since there were five of us to shoe, Mother showed no interest in putting us on our path to snootiness.  When the guy at the shoe repair shop gave her notice that shoes were beyond repair, she’d bring home a new pair, sized by the pencilled imprint of the lucky kid’s foot.  She always went prepared,  just in case.  We were a one-car family and there was no possibility of a special trip just for shoes.  We were whatever she brought home.  There was no chance we could claim ugly shoes didn’t fit.  She knew what she was doing.

Sometimes,  one of us tripped Mother up by having a major shoe malfunction resultingin shoe acquisition that couldn’t be put off till Thursday, Daddy’s payday and her scheduled trip to town,  in that miserable situation.  On more the one occasion, she made a panicky trip to the dry goods store in Cottage Valley and bought the only shoes available.  We hated these crummy sneakers, or “Tennies” as we called them, the ugly, red-headed stepchildren of Keds.

Girls got a style somewhat reminscent of Keds, usually white, wide in the arch, just right for duck feet. Bill got hightop, black basketball shoes with a white basketball on the ankle.  Naturally, we had to wear theses lovelies till they fell apart.  Mine were always dirty by the time I got to school, even if I were lucky enough they’d just been washed, and frankly, they weren’t washed that often.

My brother Billy got off the bus in one shoe after school one afternoon.  Mother exploded. “Boy, where’s your shoe?”

He wasted some time trying to explain and she wasted more trying to make sense of the story.  Finally, she got down to business and hauled him back to school to retrieve it from deep in a mass of brush on the wrong side of a hurricane fence.  Undoubtedly, he’d pushed it deeper in his rescue attempts.  Eventually, they showed up at home victorious except for scratches on her forearms and a tick or two.

 

 

Have a Boy or Know One?

 

A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep.

 

If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.

 

A 3-year old Boy’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

 

If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 x 20 ft. room.

 

You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.

 

The glass in windows (even double-paned) doesn’t stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.

 

When you hear the toilet flush and the words “uh oh”, it’s already too late.

 

Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.

 

A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old man says they can only do it in the movies.

 

Certain Lego’s will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old Boy.

 

Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

 

Playdoh makes very convincing fake poop when stuffed in the back of a small boy’s underwear.

 

Super glue is forever.

 

No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can’t walk on water.

 

Pool filters do not like Jell-O.

A large container of baby powder can change a house forever when small boys jump on it repeatedly to see it poof out.

 

Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.

 

Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

 

You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.

 

Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens.

 

The fire department in Austin, TX has a 5-minute response time.

 

The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.

 

It will, however, make cats dizzy.

 

Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

 

80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.

Younger siblings happily eat goat poop pellets if older brothers call it M & Ms.

 

 

Those who pass this on to almost all of their friends, with or without boys do it because:

1. For those with no children – this is totally hysterical!
2. For those who already have children past this age, this is easy to believe.
3. For those who have children this age, this is real life.
4. For those who have children nearing this age, this is warning is too little, too late.
5. For those who have not yet had children, your child will never, ever do these things’
6. For grandparents of the children of boys, this is the payoff, as long as it doesn’t happen at your house.