slip time

during my five year college stint (which, thankfully, ended with graduation), i worked for an engineering firm in the big city. even though i only started as an intern, i always tried to dress like a professional. this included cramming my giant size 11 feet into black, pointy-toed pumps. to this day, i still love wearing black pumps... i'm even wearing them as i write this. anyhow, as you big city girls know, being a high-heeled pedestrian in a high traffic area takes some finesse. there are times when the crosswalk sign is blatently telling you to stand still, but you can see that the SUV headed in your direction is clearly lost and driving well under the speed limit and you decide to risk running across the street. as a runner who had fallen face first in the crosswalk in front of traffic (more than once), i decided that i should give myself at least 2 more seconds to cross the road in heels in case i slipped. for friends and co-workers who walked with me, i started to call it "slip time." i would casually explain to them that the reason i waited longer to cross the road was because there wasn't enough time for me to slip, gracefully get back up and still miss getting run over by a car. and now you, my blog readers, have the opportunity to use my phrase next time you are dressed up and hesitating at the crosswalk. stop and say to yourself, "hmm... is there enough slip time for me to make it across the road?"