I should preface this story with a little background on our house and how I navigated it. We lived in a brick colonial on the west side of Detroit. It had three bedrooms upstairs and mine was the one at the very end. So, upon exiting my bedroom, there was a hallway, a turn, hallway, two steps, landing, turn, two steps, landing, turn, maybe twelve stairs, into living room, right turn, into kitchen, about 8 steps through kitchen, right turn to two steps, past milk chute to landing, left turn and out back door. While that may seem like way more details than necessary, I want you to have some sort of reference for this next part. As a child I rarely walked, I always seemed to like speed. Once I was dressed and ready to go out and play it went something like this: Run down the hall, quick turn still running, jump down first two steps, bounce off wall and jump down next two steps, use the next wall to direct me down the main staircase, turn toward the kitchen ricocheting off the door frame, through the kitchen, down back steps to landing and out the back door, all in about a minute and a half. If mom happened to be in the kitchen or living room I’d be admonished with a “Slow Down”, but usually by then I was out the door. In the sixties kids mainly played outdoors, riding bikes, playing hopscotch, jumping rope, pickup baseball games and the like, but now to the slippers.
For Christmas when I was nine I received these pink, fluffy slippers. They were the most wonderful things I had ever seen. They were warm. They were pink. And they were fuzzy!! They were amazing! They were so warm and I thought they looked great! This began my lifelong love of slippers. I began wearing the slippers every minute I was in the house. When I woke up in the morning, on would go my beautiful pink, fluffy slippers. When I came home from school (I went to a Catholic school and had to wear a uniform), I would change into my play clothes and my pink fluffy slippers. The only time I relinquished them was to put on my tennis shoes by the back landing before heading outside. In the evening my routine changed only slightly, because now I’d be going to do homework or watch TV. Instead of the ricochet through the kitchen, I would grab the railing near the end of the stairs and spin into the living room.
Now, back to my beautiful slippers, as I already mentioned they were pink and fluffy and soon I was going to find out why they were called slippers. The day after I got my slippers, I put them on and started my run out of my bedroom and down the hall toward the stairs. About halfway down the staircase something odd happened…my feet slipped off the stairs and came flying up around my face. I hit the stairs hard with my butt and bounced down the rest of the stairs in a very undignified fashion. It sounded something like BANG-boom-boom-boom-boom-bang. Dad and my brothers rushed to see what happened.
“I slipped,” I said sheepishly.
“Walk when you go down the steps Sis,” dad advised. Being the only girl, everyone called me Sis. And walk I did, at least the next time down, then I would forget and, uh-oh, my feet would fly again and BANG-boom-boom-boom-boom-bang.
After a few, okay, many of these falls, dad’s “Walk” turned into his hollering, “I’m going to put those damn slippers in the incinerator.” Yes, we had an incinerator in the house which was useful for burning certain trash and issuing threats to your kids to correct certain behavioral issues. And it’s one thing to get mad at me, but to threaten my slippers for just being, well, slippery seemed unfair.
“No Dad. Please, no. I LOVE my slippers. I’ll walk down the stairs or carry them, I promise.” Although my promises were sincere in the moment, nine-year-olds have the memory of a gnat, and soon I would forget, and after one or two times of carefully navigating the stairs with slippers in hand, I would be sliding down the stairs on my butt again.
“Oh no!” Did you ever try to fall down the stairs quietly so no one hears you? It’s quite difficult, even impossible, but I tried nonetheless. The struggle between me and my dad and my precious slippers continued for weeks. Then one day, it was over. I started carrying my slippers every time. Then, I started taking them off before I went upstairs and would leave them on the main floor. Eventually, they made their way into my closet and would only come out occasionally when it was really cold out.
Did I get tired of my beautiful slippers? No, they never lost their charm for me. Did I finally decide to be a responsible child? Well, mostly, I was still a knuckleheaded kid. I will say though, that a bruised bottom from repeated falls down the stairs makes for a darn good reminder! So, I cautiously limped to my room and put my lovely slippers into my closet for safe keeping.
So now I know, slippers are slippery and used for calm & quiet activities. Ouch!