OCTOBER 7, 2021 – Yesterday, I took . . . a business trip . . . to downtown Minneapolis, my first such venture in over 18 months. Before the lockdown last March, I’d worked in downtown Minneapolis for decades. Every day I’d dress up, look the part, and interact with lots of people in the heart of the city.
I had to “dress up” for yesterday’s trip, though I say that facetiously. Back in the day, like everyone else downtown, I always wore a suit and tie and . . . dress shoes, because shoes, I read somewhere, not the suit or tie, are what make the man. Studies commissioned by the shoe industry reveal that everyone notices—and remembers a guy’s shoes and whether they’re shined or dull, smooth or scuffed, leather-soled or rubber-soled, in fashion or clunkers. Shoes, it turns out, are a guy’s sartorial anchor.
I also wore a pair of khaki trousers—an upgrade from shorts, which I’d worn every single day since last spring—and a better dress shirt from my closet collection. I even donned a pair of dress socks, though no suit, sport jacket, or accessories, except a mask.
Upon arriving at the offices of the CPA firm that was hosting the meeting, I was escorted by the receptionist to the designated meeting room. Given how my fellow attendees appeared, I’d nailed the dress code perfectly.
For the next couple of hours, we . . . met.
Afterward, we went our separate ways, I to the Target pharmacy a block away, to fetch a refill of the eye-drop prescription that’s normally mailed to our house. As had been my habit whenever I’d ridden an escalator, I didn’t stand idly on a step, waiting for it to carry me aloft. I climbed two steps at a time.
Six steps later I learned how the pandemic had affected my motor skills. I’d grown unaccustomed to those dress shoes, especially while trying to adjust my mask and sunglasses and juggle the all-important cookie bag I’d taken from the lunch provided at the meeting. As fast as a foot on a banana peel, I . . . tripped . . . and went down hard. As any escalator rider knows, escalator steps are hard- and sharp-edged, with multiple grooves across the treads, which make the edges sharper yet and more dangerous if, as a distracted, juggling klutz, you fall, jamming the lower shin of one leg and smacking the knee of the other onto those unforgiving steps.
A 20-something Target employee who heard and saw me crash kindly asked if I was okay. “Yes,” I said, despite my supreme humiliation. By the time I’d limped to the pharmacy, however, blood was seeping through my trousers. Instead of asking for my prescription, I asked for band-aids, which a 30-something Target employee kindly furnished.
At 60-something, I was older than the sum of the ages of the two people who’d come to my aid. That + my inglorious trip + fall = “Yay young people!” + “I’m too old to multi-task while wearing dress shoes, taking two escalator steps at a time.”
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
