Nice Shoes Lady

At one time, our ward clerks were required to wear yellow uniforms. Nursing personnel wore a light ceil blue uniform, and the operating room staff wore the usual O. R. greens.

Della was one of the ward clerks in the emergency room. She was originally from Texas and often reminded us that she was a young teenager before she found out that “damn Yankee” was two words and not just one word.

While she was shopping one day, she just happened to find a pair of yellow canvas shoes. She thought that they would be perfect to wear to the hospital as part of her yellow uniform and bought them.

The first day that she wore them, she was walking from the parking lot into the emergency room just as two ladies were leaving the hospital. As Della passed them, one of the women glanced down and exclaimed, “Nice shoes lady!!”

Della looked down and was surprised to see that her shoes almost glowed in the bright sunlight. We called the color fluorescent urine. They were not green, but the yellow was so strong that it leaned towards green. It was a vibrant and brilliant somewhere-in-between hue.  She told us, that in the store, they didn’t seem so bright. It was the sunshine that made them bright. Ah, right Della.

She, of course, made the mistake of telling us what had happened outside with the two total strangers. Her small desk was located just outside the triage area, between the triage desk and the nursing station desk. When she leaned back in her chair, which she often did the toes of her size nine shoes would stick out from the front of the desk. They were not easy to miss.

Each time we walked past her and would see her “yellow” feet protruding from under her desk, we would comment, “Nice shoes lady!”

She would snatch her feet back in and scowl at us. It wasn’t long before she would forget and lean back again. The infamous fluorescent urine shoes would reappear and we would call out, “Nice shoes lady!”

She never wore those shoes to work again.