clunkity clug flap tap

Once upon a time I used to tap dance. I wasn't great, but I had gotten to a point where I could communicate somewhat effectively with my feet. My feet generally made the correct noises and for the most part, in time with the music and the rhythm.

After my ankle injury I put away my tap shoes, as I couldn't walk in even a slight heel, and I certainly couldn't stand on my toes. For four years my little shoes with tiny metal taps on the toes lived in my dance shoe bag, in a box in a of a pile of crap in my parents' storage shed.

I was determined to find them a year or so ago but to no avail. They were not where I thought I had left them.

Over Christmas break I set out on another adventure to find all my botany text books from undergrad, you know, just to brush up before I make a complete idiot out of myself in grad school. I un-stacked, then restacked every box in the tiny little shed, building myself into the very back corner until I couldn't even crawl over the tops of the boxes. I dug through clothes and dishes and boxes labeled "miscellaneous shit" full of, well, stuff. I didn't find the final and most important book in that pile. But I did find, in the very last box, at the bottom of the pile in the very back corner under some old clothes: my tap shoes.

I pulled them out of the box with glee and tucked them under my arm like they were long lost gems. And, although I was alone, I looked around suspiciously, guarding them from jealous jays collecting shiny things.

Two days ago I strapped them onto my feet and tried to make them work. But there were people around so I just fooled around, wore them to the bar, and then set them aside.

Then an hour ago I switched on some bluegrass and sat down, and I heard my shoes calling me. So I strapped them on and flapped around the living room to the banjo and stand-up bass. Unfortunately, my left foot has forgotten how to move. It has forgotten, possibly, that it is actually attached to my body. And the tapping goes something like this:

flap tap clunk, flapityflaptap, clunkungk. Clugugtup flap flap.

Oh well, soon it will remember that it is attached, and in the meantime, the clugugity clump flap tap will have to suffice.