I have this weird thing — OK, if you were my best friend, C., you would now sarcastically say that I have a lot of weird things. One of these days, C., one of these days.

But I digress.

I like clown shoes. They’re fantastic, aren’t they? I mean, just think about them for a minute.

I can actually trace this very strange fascination which is closeto/okmaybereallyanobsession.

It’s Stella’s fault.

You heard me. It’s Stella’s fault.

Yeah yeah yeah, Back In The Day, I mean, the day of Library Science grad school, I worked at the University reference desk part-time as a graduate assistant, or alternately known Grad ASS. It was, as typical, a Very Busy Day and I was running here and there helping patrons with their library questions. I was Stressed Out with all of the infernal questions. Busy Busy Busy. Nonstop. WILL IT NEVER END??!! Obviously the stress of the day was apparent on my face.

I was in a small break between one patron and the next and right in the middle of that craziness, Stella — funny, out-of-the-box, individual, nonconformist, man-I-love-that-girl Stella walked by me and with a huge twinkle in her eye and a big smile said out of the corner of her mouth, “Imagine yourself wearing clown shoes.” And she walked away a few steps like somebody with big clown shoes would walk. Right in the middle of a major university library reference center, Stella did that for me. I’ll never forget it.

It was exactly the perfect thing that I needed to bring me out of myself, out of the stress of the moment. I bust out laughing and had to really fight to pull myself together or I would have probably laughed for the next half hour, I was that close to hysterics. The thing is, I have a mind that “sees” things, that can really imagine things. So I saw it. I saw myself in the big clown shoes, walking around, trying to walk in the narrow reference stacks in these big clown shoes, having people trip over them, etc., etc. And every time during that day or the next that I thought of wearing clown shoes, I would at the least smile and usually start laughing to myself which is always a bit unsettling to people.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Oh, just my thoughts.”

Heh.

I love clown shoes. They make me smile. They make me laugh.

And did you know just how many types of clown shoes there are? My word, there are a lot of styles of clown shoes. A shoe person like myself can go beserk looking at clown shoes. The real ones are expensive too, but I don’t suppose I’d really need The Real Thing.

I did tell my co-worker and partner-in-crime, M., that if I lose my hair with chemotherapy that I could go all-out, buy the damn clown shoes and get a kick-ass clown wig to go along with it. What’s the bossman to do?

“Hey, man, I needed a wig! What’s the problem? The shoes? Oh, nasty side effect from the chemo is that my feet have swelled.”

Imagine the possibilities. I know I will.

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