A stray shoe along a road, an intersection

Orphaned by some traumatic event

Someone’s sandal, boot, stiletto, athletic footwear

Never a pair of shoes

Just one

Missing its sole mate

Always that lone shoe

Because if it were two

Someone would surely take them

But the one left behind

Like the sad lover who stayed

While his/her heart went away

Bears witness

They were there

Together in that moment

Before fate separated them

Perhaps forever

It’s only for the poets and storytellers

To ponder the tragic tale

Unlike bad human relationships

Shoes are paired up for a reason

No one ever tells you, I’m so glad you kicked that left shoe to the curb. She was just bringing you down. Or I’m so happy you’re no longer with that right shoe. He was an asshole and you can do so much better.

Did some modern-day Cinderella flee

Praying that one day her prince would find

That shoe and save her from dire circumstances?

Or was it that old woman

Who finally tired of living

With all those kids

In the cramped conditions of that shoe?

Or did someone throw that shoe at another

As an insult

Like that reporter did to Dubya?

Is the half shod person

Walking around in circles

Like someone in a rowboat with one oar

Looking for that missing shoe?

Every stray shoe has a rhyme or reason

Every stray shoe was part of the shuffle

Every stray shoe helped create

The characteristic rhythm of the bearer’s gait

If the shoe’s owner died with the remaining shoe on

People who find the body

Will inevitably think

Where’s the other shoe?

And if all the storytelling speculators

From both sides of the separated shoes

Got together

Would their stories match jigsaw style

Or be entangled like something in

A craft box?

After having dinner with a boisterous group of women at a restaurant, I came across a swag table, sponsored by a local radio station. Since “free” is my price, I grabbed the only meaningful thing among a sea of junk: a book.

As I sped read the back copy, the guy working the table informed me that I had to spin the wheel and whatever it landed on, that was the swag I’d receive. Instead of looking at the wheel, I leveled my eyes at him and gave him a look that communicated, “I’m not going to spin your fucking wheel.”

I drew the book closer to my chest and protected it with the folding of my arms. In my best Southern-woman-bless-his-heart voice, I said, “But I want this book.”

Fortunately, this guy wasn’t in the mood to be a dick. He reached over, manipulated the wheel so that it appeared to have landed on “books,” and then he fake cheered and congratulated me on winning.

On the drive home, I wondered how often are people trying to force me to spin wheels that have nothing to do with the outcome of the situation?

Like the time while I taught at a prestigious private school in Mexico, our principal assigned the teachers’ parking because students had performed so poorly on a national standardized test. The result: A sharp increase in teachers arriving tardy. Most had only arrived early for a good parking space. The assigned parking vanished as quickly as it had begun. A few days afterward, some official discovered that the wrong answer key had been used and our students had actually performed quite well.

Now, it may be obvious that there’s no connection between designated teachers’ parking and standardized tests scores, but so many people in the US have been duped into believing that the way to close the achievement gap is by testing the hell out the students.

You know what makes teachers, districts, students and schools exemplary? Money! And plenty of it. With money comes smaller classroom sizes, better resources and richer experiences both inside and outside the classroom. It’s no coincidence that students in districts with the most money score higher on standardized tests nor is it merely an excuse to note that students in cash-poor districts struggle with passing standardized tests. The achievement gap is a direct reflection of the inequity of school funding, AKA the money gap. Why doesn’t anyone ever clamor to close that?

Or how about the everyday ridiculously illogical spinning wheel of how to hang the toilet paper? Some will argue the right way is where the toilet paper hangs over the roll because, not only is it more aesthetically pleasing, but it works better since to hang it the other way will cause it to spool uncontrollably on the floor.

After 11 years of living in developing countries where I never left home without my own toilet paper stash in my purse, had perfected how to hover over a toilet, a hole, a trench or behind foliage, I knew the most important aspect to toilet paper is having it. No matter how the paper is hung, it won’t be softer, more absorbent nor more tear-proof.

Here’s another everyday illogical argument: cars vs. bikes. This great city of ours tries to remedy the shared road conflict. Each side blames the other for being dangerous and inconsiderate. They paint a vivid picture of one another’s traffic violations when it comes to who has the right of way, bikes or cars. You know which side is right? Neither! Assholes can operate a car or bike. It doesn’t matter what the mode of transportation is. Remedy the assholes, solve the traffic problems.

Another type of vehicle is movies. Movies can transport us to another time and space, delivering racism along the way. First example: Back in the 70s when no one even dreamt of an “Oscars So White” movement, my older sisters, who were teenagers at the time, could legally take me to R-rated horror movies. Inevitably, while the maniacal killer was on the loose, the actors, who were all white, would stop to have sex. Or there’d be some lone white woman running in the woods or house and fall.

One of my sisters would scoff at such scenes and mutter something to the effect, “Look at those stupid white people! Always got to have sex or fall down instead getting away.”

Of course the only reason those cliché scenes existed wasn’t due to the stupidity of white people, but the low quality of the scripts and no minorities were hired to act in them. But as a child, I really thought white people would have sex anywhere, under any circumstances and couldn’t run well, thanks to those horror movies.

Second cinematic example: When I taught ESL in Seoul, South Korea, I had a new set of adult student classes every month. So, every month I told them a little about myself and par for the course, I’d get questions about my dreads, there was always one person who’d yell out, “Michael Jordan!” whenever I said that I’d graduated from Carolina, but in one class, I experienced this little gem: one student said to me, “You must be a good dancer.”

Intrigued, I asked him why. He replied, “In the movies, all the black people are good dancers.”

I smiled, again that dangerous Southern woman smile, and said, “You know why all the black people in movies dance so well?”

He shook his head and said no.

“Because they don’t hire the black people who can’t dance.” The whole class looked amazed at one another, nodding their heads in agreement. In that moment, a part of me was furious at them, but I had to remember myself.

Wasn’t I the little girl, who, when eating dinner with her family while the news was on TV, wondered where they got THOSE black people. You know the ones who didn’t speak proper English, didn’t own a comb or brush and were always witnessing or committing crimes.

Despite the fact that most of my family and extended family are black and a significant number of friends were black, we were different than those six o’clock news blacks. I don’t recall ever seeing positive six o’clock news blacks unless they were entertainers or famous athletes.

So, during my freshman year in college when a white coed complimented me by saying, “Teresa, you don’t talk like a black person,” perhaps she’d grown up watching the six o’clock news while eating dinner with her family too.

Now I don’t want to end on such a dismal note since other species have their illogical moments as well. I live in a very pet-friendly neighborhood. Once I passed a neighbor who was walking his dog. The dog was in the position, but it couldn’t shit because it was barking at me instead. I just laughed and said to the dog, “You can’t bark and shit at the same time.”

That’s the real message here: do your business and let the bullshit pass you by.