grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

  • Home
  • Bio
  • Publishing
  • SHOP!
  • Garden
  • Food
  • Reading & Books
  • Sunday Letter

unnoticed

December 11, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

For five hours Saturday, I walked around Dallas wearing two different shoes.

Both gray Converse and rattyโ€”yes, I have two pairs of ratty gray Converseโ€”but clearly different. Slightly varying shades of gray, one with black around the tread, one with a red label, one with white. No one noticed.

Not Harold and Galeโ€”our neighbors who invited us for breakfast and served incredible BaconSausageOnionCheese omelets. Harold who ALWAYS makes fun of my laceless, pitiful Converse shoes… Rightfully so.

Not Johnโ€”my husband who walked with me to Harold and Gale’s house for breakfast, then spent the entire day with me stringing Christmas lights.

Not the CVS Pharmacist who gave me a flu shot, half of which trickled down my arm into my mis-matched shoe.

Later that same night at the Munger Place Christmas party, I was certain to wear matching shoes (black patent flats, not ratty Converse). But, chit-chatting with my girlfriends I noticed a bit of an itch at my throat, a slight irritant. A clothing tag? I was wearing my sweater backwards! Luckily, no one noticed that either.

I need a keeper for Christmas. And a new pair of tennis shoes…

talya

Wonderful Christmastime, Paul McCartney

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas, Dallas, Munger Place

Wanna receive posts via email? Sign up here!

Comments

  1. MJ Shellabarger says

    December 11, 2012 at 5:45 am

    Love it! I once taught school for half a day before a student said “Um, you have two different shoes on.” They weren’t even close to being the same shoe either so don’t feel bad! ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 7:18 am

      I did wear one black and one brown pump to work one day. Easy to do when you find your favorite shoe then buy them in both colors. Plus it was dark in the morning when I left for work:)) Luckily I lived close…

  2. Angi Cartwright says

    December 11, 2012 at 6:46 am

    Try getting up on the other side of the bed next time. I stopped an elderly lady from going into a restaurant with her skirt tucked into her panty hose on the backside. Bless her heart.
    How funny that no-one noticed your shoes.

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 7:19 am

      The panty hose thing is one of my worst fears. Of course, who wears pantyhose anymore??

  3. Angi Cartwright says

    December 11, 2012 at 6:46 am

    Try getting up on the other side of the bed next time. I stopped an elderly lady from going into a restaurant with her skirt tucked into her panty hose on the backside. Bless her heart.
    How funny that no-one noticed your shoes.

  4. Jenny says

    December 11, 2012 at 7:07 am

    One of the actual benefits of having to go to work… You know I would’ve pointed out the shoes eventually! Too funny that the shoe incident happened on the same day as the sweater incident. Take comfort in the fact that they didn’t happen together.

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 7:19 am

      True!

  5. Colene says

    December 11, 2012 at 7:21 am

    People are too busy looking at your pretty smile to notice your feet. It happens to us all! How about different earrings? Now that is embarrassing! At least you didn’t have a booger hanging out of your nose!

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 7:23 am

      Well you are too sweet Colene, but I think the real reason no one noticed was because my jeans were way too long and nearly covered my shoes.

  6. Kristi Erickson says

    December 11, 2012 at 7:28 am

    I had a pair of mismatched pumps (one black, one blue) that I wore for months before having lunch outside one day and then, in the sun, could see that they weren’t the same. Luckily, the store took them back, months and multiple wearings, later! I still can’t tell black from blue!

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 8:12 am

      Thanks hilarious!

  7. Kaa says

    December 11, 2012 at 8:37 am

    I came to work last week wearing a shirt inside-out. I didn’t notice until I went to the bathroom shortly after arriving. I quickly righted it, but there’s no telling how many people saw it and thought I must have had Quite the Night(tm) before.

    Also…unzipped pants. I just…yeah. At least once per month or so. *sigh*

    • Talya Tate Boerner says

      December 11, 2012 at 8:42 am

      When Tate was a kid, he wore his shirt on Saturday then turned it inside out the next day and voila it was clean… helped on laundry…

  8. Anonymous says

    December 11, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    Awesome! I say that the women you interacted with noticed, but were too nice to say anything!

  9. gina knuppenburg says

    December 12, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Maybe someone noticed but didn’t feel comfortable pointing it out?

  10. TimH says

    December 13, 2012 at 8:39 am

    haha…this is too funny, Talya…and well, I’ve done the inside-out shirt thing and didn’t discover until I was informed about it at work…haha…At the time, I was working 12 hour shifts, and I was taking classes at an online art school, plus I was going to work at 5 a.m. with very little to no sleep, and also, the sun got in my eyes…haha…is that enough excuses?!?!?=)…Anyhow, a couple of the ladies I worked with noticed my shirt, first, as I’m sure my collar label was boldly standing out and waving at everyone who saw it, and though I was barely paying attention, I could hear them behind me talking in a low whispery tone…”Is his shut…Noooo…Is it…ummmhmmm…oh, yes it ils,” and I could hear them giggling behind me, and before they could decide if they wanted to tell me or not, a guy I was training, did his best to keep from laughing, with little success, and he pulled me aside and told me…I told him as I smiled, “Yeah, I know it…I just wanted to see if anyone would notice,” which wasn’t true, and he knew it, too, but we both got a kick out of it, anyway!=)

  11. Sherry Clarke says

    December 13, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    That’s a classic, Talya! I can’t quite decide which is slightly more amusing….two different, ratty pairs of grey Converse, or the fact that you made it through your day wearing one of each without getting noticed! My son’s football coach wore two different athletic shoes to a football game. He was out on the field and they were different brands, colors, everything! I zoomed in with my camera and got nice evidence pics for Facebook. We had a nice friendly laugh about it! ๐Ÿ˜‰ Yeah, I’m good for that!

  12. grains of sand says

    December 16, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    Yes, I am guilty of doing that too. However the embarrassment does not quite compare to the time I stepped on a crowded bus and the female bus driver announced “Sir, your fly is open!” How I wish I had mismatched shoes on at that moment! LOL


Hi! I'm Talya Tate Boerner. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (2022)

THE THIRD ACT OF THEO GRUENE (coming 2025)

Recent Ramblings:

  • Sunday Letter: May 25, 2025
  • Sunday Letter: May 4, 2025
  • Sunday Letter: Rainy Day Edition
  • Spiderwort: my love-hate relationship
  • Sunday Letter: March 23, 2025

Never miss a blog post! Subscribe via email:

Looking for something?

Categories

All the Things!

A to Z April Blog Challenge Autumn BAT Book Reviews childhood Christmas creative writing prompt Dallas Desserts Fall Fayetteville Food Gracie Lee Halloween Hemingway-Pfeiffer holiday recipes home humor Johnson Family Keiser Lake Norfork Lucy and Annabelle Mississippi County Mississippi Delta Monarch butterflies Munger Place Nana nature Northeast Arkansas Northwest Arkansas Osceola poem Reading Schnauzer simple living simple things spring spring gardening Summer Talya Tate Boerner novel Thanksgiving The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee Thomas Tate Winter Wordless Wednesday

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!

All content and photos Copyright Grace, Grits and Gardening © 2025 ยท Web Hosting By StrataByte