Ginger is a Dangler | high heels story

My first college girlfriend, Ginger, was a champion dipper and dangler – I guess that’s one of the things that helped me screw up enough courage to ask her for our first date. It seemed that any pair of shoes she wore soon became loose, and she had a tendency to wear them until they literally fell apart. We were both majoring in biology at the time and had lots of classes together. Even when we weren’t sitting together, I’d position myself to get a good view of the show she always put on.

Early in our junior year, Ginger started wearing a pair of low, chunky-heeled pumps. Every woman I ever saw wearing this style seemed to have trouble keeping them on, but Ginger was the first. By Thanksgiving, the shoes had gotten so loose that they slipped off her heels with almost every step. As soon as she’d sit down on one of the lab stools in our bio or chemistry classes, she’d pop them off and play around almost all during the class – may be that’s why I got a C.

One day in late winter, we were working alone in a small honors lab. Ginger was wearing a short navy and gold dress (yep, college girls wore dresses and skirts back then) and she perched herself on the lab bench, crossed her feet at the ankles and began a great dangling exhibition. Every few minutes there was a loud thunk as one or both of those great shoes would slip off, then she’d start all over. Lucky I was wearing a lab coat!

We kidded around a lot and the room seemed to be getting a lot warmer all the time. Finally, we decided to wrap up and go for a walk before dinner. The weather was chilly and the paths were slushy, but I don’t think we noticed. Anyhow, somehow we got into a chase. I could run a lot faster than Ginger in her loose pumps, but I kept it slow enough to stay behind her and watch. You guessed it – before long she ran right out of one shoe, which tumbled into the gutter that was full of melting snow. No problem, Ginger just stuck her stockinged foot into the water, pulled the shoe out, and we continued walking to the dining hall. Once we got there, she kept slipping that wet shoe off and rubbing her cold foot on her other leg. Once we sat down at the table, I soon felt her trying to warm and dry her foot on my leg. I don’t know how much it helped her, but it sure warmed me up.

That soaking and a couple of others during the winter didn’t help the shoes, and by early spring they were starting to split at the sides around the little toes. That made them even sexier to me and maybe to some others, too. One day we were bending over our lab benches doing some microscope work, and Ginger kept dipping and playing all the while. Finally she stretched her right leg behind her and plop! – off came the shoe. Our professor happened to be standing behind her at the time and he announced so all the class could hear, “Miss Jenkins, you can’t go barefoot in this lab. If you can’t keep your shoes on, I suggest you take a seat.” That pretty well did it. By the next week, Ginger was wearing a new pair of flats, which soon produced their own story.