A Costly Smile

It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been concentrating on smiling.  Two women I’d never seen before were coming toward me across from the Inn.  I figured they might be staying in one of the guest cottages.  As a prime representative of predawn walkers, it was my duty to make them feel welcome.  There is an art to predawn greeting, one that so far defies definition.  You don’t want to look at a face too early, but you shouldn’t leave it too late, either.  At just the right moment, you should catch the eye of the oncoming person, smile, and say hello.  In my case, the standard greeting is good morning.  The words came out properly, but I hope they didn’t see my smile take a nosedive.  As I said “ing” I felt my right foot slip a bit.  I knew before I lifted the foot that a dog had been there shortly before me.  It was confirmed when I slipped a little more with the next step.  Ugh!!!  Somebody had not picked up his doggie’s doo – diarrhea doo, at that!  I realize it was unpickupable, but I wish they had put out a cone or yellow tape for warning.   

I was close to the car and almost ready to go home, but not with that extra baggage.  I looped around the parking lot and walked on the beach to the singing stones, determined to make the sand and grit cleanse my sole.  Hopefully no one saw my chicken dance, twisting and turning the right foot for maximum abrasion.  I told Snot, the car, to hold his nose as I drove home.  The sneakers came off at the door, and I used a pointed instrument to clean out the treads.  I made the shoes do their own dance as I clapped them forcefully together to remove the remaining bits of sand.  I parked them on the edge of the wastebasket in my bedroom for a final drying.  The shoes had their own silent comment.  When I looked at them an hour later, they had jumped inside the wastebasket.  I believe it was attempted sneakercide.  Knowing how much I paid for them, I hauled them out and promised them counseling if necessary.