In the last couple of weeks, southeastern Minnesota has been subject to fluctuations between warm humid spells and brief sudden downpours. These rains have had a high impact on those students who check the forecast once in the morning and carelessly forget to examine the emojis associated with the later times, planning their outfits simply for the hours right in front of them. These surprising showers have also deeply harmed Carleton’s extremely dedicated barefoot community, a subset of students who rely on the specifically hardened and torn-up dry soles of their feet for traction against the ground. On Sunday, May 24, a strong evening storm caused these groups to strangely swap places, a seemingly random event that will have a visible impact on campus for years to come.
Many of the fashion-forward students at Carleton are highly studious, and on this particular Sunday, a number of them had made plans to hit a “diabolical lock in” in the library from 3:00 p.m. onwards.
One student, Kitty Heelle ’27, shared her story, saying, “Since I wouldn’t be doing many steps in the library, I decided to wear my beautiful brown leather flats to study in. They worked well with my corduroy skirt to create a dark academia vibe that I absolutely need to be able to study seriously. The shoes are kind of a learning aid, really. And they aided me so much that I was studying from 3:00 all the way until 8:00 p.m.! So imagine my surprise after those five hours had gone by when I stepped out of the library, and it was raining cats and dogs out there. I did the only thing I could think to — putting the shoes in my niche museum tote bag, and bare-footing it back to my dorm, where I carefully patted the girls dry.”
On the other side of the coin was barefoot ambassador Thomas “Tuff” Sole ’28, who was chilling in his hammock all day. When the rain got to his speaker and disrupted his melodic shuffle of incredibly loud dad rock music, he was awoken from his nap, and found himself stranded there.
Sole told the Carletonian, “Fortunately, all we barefooters keep a pair of sandals in our backpacks, either Tevas or Chacos, for times like these. It’s absolutely crucial that we keep our walkers dry, or the traction we’ve spent years building will be destroyed and our rock climbing agilities won’t be impressive enough to keep us in the gene pool anymore.”
So Sole put on his emergency shoes and made his way back to the dorm he was displaced to after CANOE closed, walking tenderly in the bulky items like Ariel right after receiving legs.
Many members of the shoe-loving and barefoot communities followed these respective examples in the moment of biblical downpour. Knee-high boots and vintage heeled sandals were stuffed in purses or wrapped in cute outer shirts and jackets, while backpacks, knapsacks and drawstrings all over campus had sandals extracted or de-carabiner-clipped from them. Many students, however, witnessed these mad dashes across campus with surprise from their complex windows, and the truth of the situation was revealed on Yik Yak: the communities had essentially swapped places.
After four days of relentless bullying in-person and online, the two communities got together and decided something had to be done. They decided to form one large club centered around open-toe and high exposure sandals that were still fashionable. Many also discussed the similarities between tabis and climbing shoes, and at the end of the day, over 30 pairs of horrendously ugly neon five-toe shoes were ordered to campus. They will terrorize prospective students for terms to come.
