The Other Shoe Dropped

At around 11:37 p.m. last night, I stopped at the Rite Aid near my apartment to pick up a few essentials. Despite the fact Los Angeles County is larger than North Carolina and 9.8 million people live here, the sidewalks roll up at about 10:30 p.m. Hence, if you’re a creature of the night, like myself, there are limited options when you need laundry detergent or a double scoop of Thrifty Ice Cream after that. Therefore, the drug store is your destination.

I was there buying a frozen cheese pizza and bottle of red wine, and since I’m a grown woman, there will be no explanation or apologies for my sophisticated palate and penchant for eating dinner at midnight.

The store’s security guard was behind the counter flirting with one of the cashiers as I waited in line to pay. He was a handsome kid in his late twenties and appeared to be in fairly good shape. He asked the girl why she thought he was a “leg man,” and she giggled. I wasn’t trying to be nosy; I notice stuff. My grandma Mourer used to say, “You are the most observant child.” Occasionally, she even meant it as a compliment.

After the guard finally grew tired of the flirtation and decided to come out onto the floor to do his job, I could see that he was wearing black socks and Nike shower shoes with his uniform.

To clarify, shower shoes are similar to flip flops but without the straps that go between your big toe and the weird long one next to it to help keep them on your feet. Instead, there’s a fat strap that goes across the top of your foot that really doesn’t do much of anything that I can tell because I’ve never seen anyone wearing shower shoes where at least three inches of their foot wasn’t hanging off the front, scraping pavement, while the back half of the sole was riding up on their heel like spurs on a cowboy boot.

It’s kind of like wearing only half of a shoe. Not only are they uncomfortable, but incredibly impractical. It’s hard keeping them on your feet in the best of times, like when taking a shower at the gym, so you don’t get other people’s foot goo on yours, which is what they’re made for, let alone trying to stop someone from running out of the store with a six-pack of Coors Light stuffed down their pant leg. Yet, it is the footwear that this gentleman had chosen for fighting crime.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the plan is to kick them off at the first sign of trouble and go after the perp wearing only socks. Have you ever tried walking on a linoleum floor in stocking feet? Even if you can remain upright, you’re not going anywhere fast.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just happened to notice.