Those black flats

Tip-toeing morning sunshine is intoxicating as it graciously sweeps over shadowed stillness. With Phil Collins, Three Dog Night, and some Bossa Nova fueling my spirit as I sit on the sleeping bus, I realize, par its failing reputation, that my body has gravitated to sit me in the only seat that neither reclines, nor has a functional arm rest. At 5 in the morning, my spine doesn’t really care that I’ve taken eight dance classes that week which teach me about proper posture and alignment. Larry the Cucumber streams into my headphones – reminding me that he’s a pirate who doesn’t do anything; and I find I’ve made it all of an hour after dawn brekky before stuffing more food into my barely-waking system.

It’s quite a frightening sensation when you smell something waft over a bus and consider that it might be coming from the shoes you just took off. You envision, in a staggering instant, societies shunning your face and friendships being severed like the limbs of a Barbie in the hands of your twisted cousin. You feel that there will soon be generous frowns from all walks of life acutely stabbing your wardrobe selections;  at the fact that such a putrid smell could come from a pair of size 7 flats. All because you chose to bring those black shoes. Those silly black shoes. The ones that may potentially be molding. The ones you wore extensively in last weekend’s persistent deluge, possessed by the evil puddles to rot in humid decay. Rain everywhere. Cats. And dogs. From … the  … sky. You knew they would betray you, but it’s the only black pair of shoes you brought to Australia.  You wanted to be different than the girl behind you who brought all the shoes she owns for the four months abroad. But now you only have this one pair that match the dress you’re wearing. And you have to wear a dress on the 7-hour bus ride because you’re going to visit Parliament. You’re happy because most everyone is asleep, and maybe they won’t notice that the bus now smells like a well-loved locker room. Maybe they will be acutely unaware of the assault to the comfort of their senses. If you were to be able to just reach the frilly, girly lotion tucked in your backpack, maybe you could confound the nostrils of those nearby. It is, of course, wedged into the deepest, darkest, most hardest-to-reach corner of the most awkwardly placed pocket furthest from your desperate fingers ….  maybe you should just chuck both the insubordinate backpack and the disloyal shoes out the window … and you can feel those frowning noses from the fastidiously analytical culture of the masses coming to shame you ….. and you just can’t find that lotion … and people are starting to wake up …. And the shoes are staring at you, mocking the distress of your soul …

And then, in a moment of insurmountable beauty, the skies open up as you realize that the awful scent is coming from outside the bus.

Crisis crushed. Boo-yah.

So you begin a carefree conversation with those who are awake (and some who really aren’t, or shouldn’t be) about Neil Patrick Harris, excrement of jellyfish, mnemonic anemones, strategic tactics for the acquisition of quarters, school buses, and fathers being pastors.

It’s going to be a good day.