if the shoe fits...

A few years ago, a friend of mine at work ("G") was telling me about one of the many ridiculous "safety warning" messages he'd received through the system. (We truly live in Dilbert-land sometimes). An "incident" was reported whereby a "foreign body" impaled itself on someone's foot, resulting in an injury. Said recipient was wearing sandles, and an offical warning was sent out to assure that all employees were wearing appropriate footwear. In the midst of feeling so warm and fuzzy that my work cares *so much* about my well being as to warn me to wear appropriate footwear to prevent the impalement of foreign bodies on my foot (VERY inconvenient, and why yes, of COURSE I am TOTALLY serious here!!!), friend "G" made it his point to inspect my shoes daily to insure that I was complient. I normally wear sandles. So therein out, it became a big joke between he and me to comment on the safety (or better, the lack of safety) of my shoes. Said joke became even more weird after a conference I attended in Atlanta whereby some professor from one of the Carolinas had an obvious women's shoe fettish and commented repeatedly on my dress shoes during our walk from the University one evening. (totally creeped me out) Obviously, my sharing that odd encounter just made "G" the "safe shoe guy" all the more giddy with the total ridiculousness of the shoe situation.

So anyway, sometime a few weeks ago, when I arrived at my office one one fine morning, I noticed the phone message light on my phone was blinking. The message was from the safety office and was there to let me know that the "safety shoes" which has been ordered for me had arrived.



I immediately forwarded the message to "G", who called me back all a-giggle and said what a funny joke that was and he only wished he'd been the one to think of it. He suggested it might have stemmed from Wonderboy instead, so I forwarded the message to him...and he promptly called me back to basically say "What in the hell kind of weird chick are you to be forwarding your strange phone messages to me?"

So despite knowing in my heart that there is a 99.98% chance that friend "G" (who has since retired but continues to work as a contractor and is in our building everyday...and continues to visit my office to chat to all of us and to check on my shoes) HAS to be behind this - well duh, he does, right? - I am still just enough puzzled by it that it is driving me absolutely NUTS.

For what it's worth, most of the winter I wore very very appropriate and safe shoes. But I am just itching to be back in my Birks as it warms up here. Will I regret foregoing the opportunity to wear safety shoes instead? Nah. If the Birks fit, then by god, wear them...