My Million Dollar Idea

About four years ago, I broke my foot in a work-related injury. I was at a home visit, but I was scheduled for a court appearance later that day, so I was wearing a skirt and completely impractical shoes. My client's apartment building had the scariest stairs I had ever seen, and the light in the stairwell was burned out, so the only light came from the front door. The stairs were steep and narrow, and about the depth of a ladder rung, so there really wasn't enough space for secure footing even for my little size 6 feet, much less average-size feet. (Yes, I am a little vain about my foot size. My feet are pretty much the only parts of my body that can be described as "tiny," so back off.)

Anyway, the part that kills me is the fact that I realized how dangerous these steps were, so I was extra careful when I left the home visit. (My client, of course, lived on the top floor.) However, the impractical shoes won out over my caution, and when I was less than halfway to the bottom, my left foot slipped out in front of me, my right foot bent backwards behind me, and I went the rest of the way down the steps on my rear end. Remember how I said I was wearing a skirt? Yeah. That was fun. Obviously, I knew right away I had done some serious damage to my foot, but my only thought was to get out of that building. My client, god love him, heard me fall, came running out after me, and helped me to my car, apologizing and offering to call an ambulance the whole time. However, it was a bad neighborhood, and there was no way in hell I was leaving my car unattended there. So instead, I called my office and told them I'd need someone to cover for me at court because I had to go to urgent care, and then I called my mom and asked her to meet me at her house, because I didn't think I could drive all the way to the urgent care center myself. And then I proceeded to drive 10 miles operating the gas and brake pedals with a broken foot. I'm honestly not sure how I made it that far in that much pain, but I suspect that shock may have had something to do with it. Which also makes it nothing less than a slight miracle that I didn't wreck on the way.

But none of that is my point in writing this. I just thought I'd mention it.

My point is, I had to wear one of those bionic boots on my right foot for about a month after this incident. Which meant that I only had to wear one shoe during that time, which in turn meant that after I was no longer wearing the boot, that pair of shoes was unevenly worn and therefore no longer comfortably wearable. Also, for about a year afterwards, my feet were two slightly different sizes, meaning that I had a choice between wearing shoes that were slightly too big on my left foot or slightly too small on my right foot. That seems to have resolved itself now, but it leads me to my million dollar idea. Shoe separates. Yeah, you heard me. Shoe separates. Where you buy one shoe at a time to accommodate bionic boots or swollen feet. Of course, you can buy a pair if you want to, but this way if your left foot is a 6 and your right foot is a 6.5, you don't have to wear the wrong size shoe, and if you're wearing a bionic boot, you can buy a shoe to wear specifically with that boot so you don't have to deal with uneven shoe wear!

Brilliant, right?

**Crickets**

Fine. Be that way. Unfortunately, though, I completely lack the business sense to see this idea through, so I decided to publish it here, so that if anyone else tries to start the same business, I can sue them. And that is my ultimate million dollar idea. See this publication date? I had the idea first. So there.