** This article is based on nonfiction by actual events that I have experienced firsthand; used with permission.
My coworker had just returned from maternity leave, and her first week back to work was pretty busy at the office and at home with her 3-month-old baby. So one particular morning, she was running a few minutes behind schedule when she came scurrying in from the parking lot area.
She apologized profusely to everyone for being late to her desk and began to turn on her computer and prepare for the day. After a few minutes of setting her desk up, she left her desk to go and grab a cup of coffee in the break room.
I was heading to the break room for a cup of coffee at that moment. I asked her how the nights were going with her new baby and if she was getting any rest. She laughed and said that she was learning to sleep when the baby sleeps and last night was particularly tough on both of them as the baby had some sort of a digestive upset.
She said she had been up most of the night rocking her new baby because the baby kept burping and was upset. Then, when her daycare provider arrived in the morning, she said she had raced through her morning routine to get out the door to work on time.
I smiled and told her that I remembered similar days myself. Then, I glanced down at her feet. She was wearing a pink fuzzy slipper on one foot, and on her other foot, she was wearing a dress shoe. I began to laugh and asked her if her feet hurt. She frowned and said that today her feet felt different than they had previously, and then she looked at her feet.
I’ll never forget the look of sheer panic that she gave me when she looked back up at me. We both burst out laughing. My friend quickly excused herself to “run out to her car.” Thankfully she kept an extra pair of shoes in her car at all times so she could just switch over to those.
The rest of the day, we kept laughing about her footwear that morning. When my friend left work that day, she said she would put an “emergency outfit including footwear” in her car to keep at the ready at all times.
Being a new mom brings with it all sorts of fun and new challenges. My coworker and I still laugh about this whenever we think about it. Have you ever seen yourself leaving the house with two different kinds of footwear?
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