So I'm standing at a gas pump filling up my car's tank when I look down and notice I'm wearing mismatched shoes. I'm halfway between home and campus. Do I go back home and change shoes or carry on toward campus?
Some considerations: I don't teach on Thursdays and I don't really need to be on campus until late afternoon, when I have a Zoom meeting. (On Zoom, no one knows your shoes are dogs.) The shoes are similar enough that few people would notice the difference anyway--both black Skechers, the older one from a pair I use for messy, muddy tasks, like picking up beer cans in the muddy drainage ditch along our road, which I did just yesterday before the rain started.
On the other hand, going back home would require backtracking, which violates the strictures of the tiny Puritans who inhabit my brain. They thrive on efficiency and reject concerns for appearance, so they'll have hysterics if I turn around. Moreover, back home I'd have to encounter the sick person currently inhabiting my house, and while I love my son, I'm not a fan of vomit. (No fever, so no worries.) Finally, yesterday the electric utility dudes started work on replacing electric poles and lines that run across our property, and their trucks are currently colonizing my driveway. I don't feel like maneuvering through that muddy labyrinth right now.
So now I'm sitting in my office huddled up to the space heater until my socks dry out (because it's the kind of rain that makes puddles hard to avoid). I'll have to put on my mismatched shoes whenever I leave the office, and when I do, I'll pretend that I'm making a bold fashion statement, sparking a new trend, setting forth on an unconventional path.
It'll be easy enough to join me--just follow the muddy footprints.
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