Don't keep your shoes in the cupboard...

It was a sweltering, sunny Australian morning. The kind of sticky morning where you step out of the shower and after 10 seconds in the heat, need to hop back in again.

I rose at 6 am and began my daily school routine: breakfast, the entire soundtrack of Chicago performed in the shower, 30 minutes of staring at myself in the mirror, 30 minutes of lying aimlessly on my bedroom floor, followed by a hurried dash to get ready before the bus arrived at 8:05 am. I could hear my Mum screaming my name from the front door, alerting me to the fact that it was 8:03 and I had less than 2 minutes to run to the bus stop. I pulled on my shoes with the laces still done up, grabbed my schoolbag and a banana, and began my jog to the bus stop. Thankfully, the bus drives past my driveway on its way to the school, so as usual, Bob the bus driver stopped on the side of the road as my breathless-self scrambled up the steps and found a seat. On this particular morning, the bus was unusually crowded, so I found myself sitting in an aisle seat next to a girl I didn't know.

As the bus began moving, I became very aware of a hard lump in my shoe. It was positioned right under the arch of my foot and I could foreshadow the nuance it would cause me for the rest of the school day. However, and this is where my candid self comes into play, I was not prepared to take off my shoe in the middle of the bus to remove what I assumed was a rock. You see, no matter how inconvenient something is, if it will cause me any embarrassment, create a scene where people would stare at me, or force me to communicate with strangers, I will find another way around it. I have worn woolen jumpers on 30-degree days because there was a tiny hole in my school dress. I have eaten the wrong meal at a restaurant because I didn't want to cause a fuss. I have answered to the name Sasha for a week, even though my name is Sarah, because I was too embarrassed to correct the person. So, there was no way I was about to take off my shoe in the middle of the bus, revealing my already sweaty and smelly sock, to remove that tiny lump. Instead, I moved my foot around and used my toes to push it to the end of my shoe so I was no longer stepping on it. Satisfied with my efforts, I rode the bus into school.

As the bus pulled up at the school, I followed the crowd of students into the school building and made my way to my locker. All of my closest friends had lockers in the same area as me, so one-by-one they filtered in and we chatted about the weekend until the bell rang signaling the start of first period. I don't recall what class or classes I had that morning, but I do remember it dragging on, and the heat didn't help. I attended a public school, so we didn't exactly have the funds for quality air conditioners in each classroom. Don't get me wrong, we had air conditioners, but I'm certain they were installed a long time ago and were well past their due-by date. So, we couldn't count on them to cool the classroom down enough, and the heat seemed to stretch out the length of the class periods. Sometime during those morning classes, the lump at the end of my shoe had crept back under the sole of my foot, but again I had moved my toes around and pushed it out of the way instead of disposing of it completely.

Finally, the bell rang for recess and my friends and I exchanged our books for snacks and made our way to the front of the school. There we sat on the benches and pavers under the shade of a tall tree and ate and chatted. It was about 10 minutes into recess when I realized the lump had once more made its way into an inconvenient place under my foot. I contemplated shoving it to the end of my shoe again, but knew that this would become a common, and extremely annoying, occurrence throughout my day if I did not deal with it properly now. (Which, reading this aloud, I realize is some insightful wisdom to my now adult self, on how I should be handling bigger situations in my life...) Besides, I was in the company of friends, friends who wouldn't mind if my socks were sweaty and smelly. And if they did mind, I would have laughed and waved my sweaty, smelly socks in their faces. So, I pulled my foot towards me and began untying my shoelace. Just as I was undoing the last knot, I turned to one of my friends on my right and said jokingly: "Imagine if it was a spider in my shoe and not a rock!" To which she laughed and said, "Imagine that!"

Before I go on, I have to inform you that I am utterly terrified of spiders. I know that only a small amount are actually deadly, and they mostly keep to themselves and leave us humans alone. But my fear of them is not a rational fear, it is a completely irrational fear and my response to spiders is beyond my control. In most encounters, I try to get as far away from the spider as quickly as possible, which is usually accompanied with a high-pitched screech, uncontrollable crying, and sometimes complete hysteria. So, consider yourself informed: I am utterly terrified of spiders.

I slipped off my shoe but immediately flung it into the center of my group of friends with a high-pitched screech. Because staring back at me, with all 10 of its eyes, was not a rock as I originally thought, but in fact a large Huntsman spider. It was laying on its back with its 8 hairy legs curled in the air. Dead. I have never seen a group of 17-year-old girls move faster than they did on that day. It turns out that my fear of spiders is fairly common amongst teenage girls.

Eventually one of the girls found the courage to tip the creepy crawly into a bush and return my shoe to me. But I had not yet regained my senses, I was crying and shaking and hysterically laughing at the same time. I must have appeared as a mad woman to any passers-by. A teacher patrolling the school yards approached our group and asked me what was wrong, so I explained to her what had just occurred right under my…well…feet. She then told me that I shouldn’t leave my shoes outside, or something bigger might crawl into them next! But I only exclaimed that my shoes hadn’t been left outside, they were left in a cupboard in my bedroom! To which, I swear, she turned and walked away looking a little paler.

For the rest of the day, I refused to put on my school shoe. And if anyone questioned it, I simply told them the story and they stopped their questionings as quickly as they had begun. A creepy thought pops into my head every now and again, when I think of this story: Did the spider die and then fall into my shoe…Or was it the wrath of my foot that killed it? I’m almost too afraid and disgusted to know the answer. All I do know, however, is that I will never put on a shoe without checking inside it and giving it a loud thump on the ground before putting it on. And if I ever feel a small lump under my foot again, I won’t let my usual character stop me from taking off my shoes, even if it is in public or on the aisle seat of a school bus. AND I will never keep my shoes in the cupboard!