When my brother was younger, it had to learn, like any other kids, how to put his shoes in the right foot. Like any other kids, it was a learning curve. That might seem very ordinary, but we happened to witness something really funny about this logic when learning left and right.
Wrong foot
One day, Patrick came in the kitchen, where my mom and I were. We noticed that his shoes were on the wrong feet, so we told him so. He looked at his feet, and ran to his room to change those shoes.
Still wrong foot
When he came back, the shoes were still on the wrong feet. We told him so, and he looked at us puzzled. But he believed us, and went to his room to switch them.
Still wrong?
Again, the shoes were on the wrong feet. Now, how can you switch feet and still end up with the shoes on the wrong feet? After all, we have only two feet, so how did he manage?
This is how i do it
Curious as i was, i followed him in his room to check if he was really taking of his shoes to change them. What i saw was too cute. First, he would take the shoe on his right foot (which is the left shoe), and put it in front of the LEFT foot. Then, he took t the shoe off his left foot, and put it in front of his right foot. That is how you switch them, right?
And the extra switch
At that point, the left shoe was in front of the left foot and the right shoe, in front of the right foot. That should be perfect now, right? Well, since he needed to switch feet, he then crossed his arms, grabbed the shoes and switched them side! THAT was a double switch process and as often as he could have tried the same thing, the shoes would always be on the wrong feet.
I get it now!
That is when we had to explain that he was, in fact, switching his shoes twice, while he should only switch them once: either while taking them off OR after, not both. He learned that lesson very quickly as it was the last time i remember his switching his shoes twice to fit the right feet.
Do you remember learning about your left and right? Can you think of any anecdote related to that? How about someone else who was learning? I am sure there are many stories about that. Share yours in the comments below.
1 thought on “Remember when…? – Shoes”
That’s a cute story, and perfectly logical from his point of view. I don’t have anything interesting to say on this subject (left/right on my car seemed to give me more trouble than anything else). My only shoe memory is that my ties always end up with the bows upside down. I can tie someone else’s shoes and the bow comes out fine, but, on myself, it always gets turned around, and it has been that way since I learned how to tie a bow. Go figure. That’s probably why I prefer shoes that slip on.