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He grips his shoes and shuffles himself forward to the edge of the seat. He sets his shoes on the ground and sits up slowly. His toes grope for the shoes and finally reach their destination. He doesn't look down. He can't look at his feet while he puts shoes on. He just can't.

Once, he signed up for a soccer team and took thirty minutes to put on his shoes for the first game. He was too nervous and the shoes were too tight.

He never played again.

For his wedding, he put the wrong shoe on twice in a row, and dissolved in fits of nervous laughter. He took his shoes off and got married in socks.

He had been to job interviews wearing mismatched shoes.

He once put the tongue of the shoe underneath his foot and couldn't figure it out for ten minutes.

Once he got married, however, all his problems stopped. His wife bought him twenty identical slippers. No left, no right, no tongue, no laces, no problems.