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From: The Dean

Subject: Floors of the School -- Black Marks


The maintenance crew usually works until 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. every evening polishing the floors so that you can see your face on the floors in the morning. Within one hour, almost on every floor, there are black smudge marks from individuals' shoes.

I would appreciate it if each one of you would find out if your shoes are the culprit that are causing the problems on our floors. It would be helpful if we could identify the problem shoes, and perhaps those individuals could wear different shoes or have their heels replaced.

It is disheartening to our maintenance team to work so hard to prepare our facilities for daily use, only to have black smudges on every floor of the school caused by individuals' shoes with the first hour each morning.

Your attention to this would be sincerely appreciated.

Thank you.

Does this sound like the ravings of a lunatic?  I get an image of the Dean, crouching on the floors of the school, sleeves rolled up, late, late into the night, rag in hand, scouring the floor, muttering "Dirty.  Dirty black marks.  So dirty.  Dirty..."

I was disappointed to find that my shoes did not leave black marks, because I would like to drive the Dean insane, if at all possible.  I'd spend extra time in the hallways, just scuffing the shit out of the floors, in hope of increasingly frantic follow-up e-mails from the demented old guy, wherein he would suggest that we ban all footwear in the school, or simply avoid the floors altogether, moving through the University, spider-like, clinging to the walls.

Also, in this, the politically correct, um, Oh-Oh's, or whatever we're supposed to call this decade, don't you think "Black Marks" is not the most sensitive term?  How about "Marks of Color"?

One more thing I'd like to point out: two of the people I forwarded this memo to brought to my attention the combination of overly reflective floors and anyone wearing a skirt.  Hm.  Maybe the Dean is not an anal-retentive micromanaging Nazi.  Maybe he's just a dirty old man.

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