Don't Go Barefoot in Texas

If you were to look in my closet, you’d find an assortment of shoes. Conservative black business suit heels, neon yellow slides that make noisy clunks with each step, blue flip flops, white athletic shoes, hiking boots, rubber snow boots with fleece lining, bitchin’ brown high heels of mock snake skin – they’re all there and more. Some cost a Dillard’s $65 others as low as $8 on a clearance rack at Payless. I have a lot of shoes because at my former corporate job with a client entertainment expense account, I was packing on pounds. My dress size was going up but my shoe size never changed. I’d buy shoes when the shopping urge struck me.

Now, with our new lifestyle as fulltime RVers, I rarely eat out and have no per diem to draw when traveling. My dress size is shrinking; my shoe size is staying the same. And, although I’d love to kick off my shoes to run barefoot, I am finding you just can’t go barefoot in Texas!

We weren’t in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas but a few minutes until Ed heard me mutter a hushed “Son of a bitch” and grab my bare foot. Unsympathetically, he said, “That little thing couldn’t hurt you.” He found out I wasn’t exaggerating when a sand burr went into his sensitive foot. “Ouch!” he yelled, “Those damn things hurt.”

Sand burrs track into the coach on our shoes; and even if we kick our shoes off at the door, the burrs still find their way inside. They’re invisible in the fuzzy nap of my bathroom carpet. They stick to the tread of our shoes. I even pulled one out of my bed sheet. Last night, I used tweezers to yank two burr thorns from Ed’s heel (He momentarily walked outside in socks – no shoes).

I knew Texas was hard on feet from the time when we moved to Texas in 2001. I walked barefooted in the lush green grass of out new backyard and learned the hard way about fire ants. They bit my toes, between my toes, and the tops of my feet. Burning bites turned to itchy, red pimpled bumps. I kept my shoes on in Whitehouse, Texas and now, I expect to leave my shoes on here. So, Ed, I am not giving up that collection of shoes yet. I’ll find room in the narrow space of the closet for all those shoes until I find a place where I can go barefoot.