Warning to all students: although it doesn’t explicitly state in the student handbook that shoes are necessary at school, without them you will still get dress coded mercilessly because apparently it’s a “state law” or something. I was caught in this horrible series of accidental law breaking when an unspeakable wardrobe malfunction left me stranded without shoes for the rest of the day.

Although my shoe gave out early in the morning, I managed to go through most of the morning with minimal comment and odd stares. Other than literal cold feet, I thought I had gotten off easy. It wasn’t until 6th hour when I was walking into class that my luck ran out, and a teacher spotted me from afar.

As the teacher cut off any option of escape, my brain searched for a truly good reason to be in a shoeless state. Wasting no time, she opened the door and shouted loudly at the sub in front of a room full of my peers, “We have a shoeless student out here. She has to come in the room but she cannot participate in class until she gets some shoes on!”

Satisfied that I was forever outcast from social interaction, she ushered me in and left me subjected to the dumbfounded gazes of my peers as if I had walked in with a straight jacket on. The sub told me that until I was able to find shoes, I was forced to stay in his classroom. Consequently, more social humiliation followed as I was forced to ask every single person if they had the power to make shoes appear on my feet. Finally one girl took pity on me and went to her gym locker and brought me her running shoes. And to repay this act of kindness, I went sock-less in her shoes, an act so heinous that I don’t even do it in my shoes because of the moisture and general stench build up.

As I was just beginning to scrape up any dignity I had left, I found out news had spread of my wild barefooting ways. The rest of my day was filled with comments of “Thank goodness you put some shoes on” or a simple laugh-till-you-cry when I try to explain the depths of my humiliation.

Although I find it ridiculous that a shirt or shoes are required for service––if I had to chose one article of clothing I would really hope they were wearing pants. Take my social scars as a lesson: when breaking a state law, it’s not the state penalties that hurt you the most––it’s the weeks of shoe based ridicule from your peers.