Within another department of my faculty was a rather rotund fellow who had earned the nasty nickname "the pillow". Being the brunt of vitriolic ridicule, few if anyone would ever had traded places with the pillow. There was one day when I would have traded places with him.

I noticed him enter into one of the university's buildings from an entrance that opened up onto a busy city street. A few paces behind him was this moderately attractive woman who had long straight blonde hair and metal framed glasses. I qualified her level of attractiveness as she did border on looking like the kind who would be the type who would "wear sensible shoes". She wore a medium long winter coat that allowed the lower portion of her knee length skirt or dress to appear beneath it. One of her legs was protected from the elements by a black boot that finished at about the level where her skirt or dress ended. And, on the subject of sensible footwear, her other lower leg was protected from the elements by an equally high, and more than attractive, white heeled plaster slwc. The foot portion of which was protected by what appeared to be a red stocking cap that had been pulled over the end all the way to where the vertical part of the cast began.

Without crutches, she walked with a fair amount of ease but slowly. I assumed that the only slight limp she had was probably due to the weight of the heavy plaster. A hunk of plaster that had yet to be signed, marked up or otherwise graffiti'd.

I watched with interest as the couple proceeded down a long hallway that led to the busiest part of the faculty's buildings. What intrigued me more than anything else was that the pillow was walking much faster than the woman who accompanied him. Within a few moments, he was several yards ahead of her, and the gap grew larger with time. Anybody happening upon them at this point in time would have never guessed that they were together. The distance between them, and particularly her slower pace, did not bother me as it allowed me to get to see her casted self more.

At one point where they had to go through a set of doors, he waited for her. On the other side of the doors, he once again opened up a big lead on her. Eventually arriving at the main lobby in the busy area, she went over to one of the pay phones and started leafing through the telephone directory. I pretended to take out my own coin and went to a nearby phone and pretended to insert it and to dial a number.

I got a good look at the cast. It was definitely recent as it still had a luster typical of newer casts. I appreciated the opportunity of seeing so much of the cast, despite the foot portion being so covered. As to the stocking cap, I never was able to see exactly how it was arranged underneath the cast, especially at the location of the heel. I could see the outline of where the heel was situated but I doubted that a hole had been cut out to accommodate the heel. It was strange that she wasn't slipping on the tile floor with the lack of friction that the existence of the stocking cap must have resulted in. Then again, maybe that was why she was ambulating so slowly.

For the time that she was searching through the directory and subsequently on the telephone, I watched with interest. I pretended ended my conversation with myself and decided to watch from a bit further. It was then that I spotted the pillow once again. He was going about his own business in the general area of where his casted woman friend was.

Eventually she got off the telephone as I was spotted by a friend who started talking to me. That made me miss pillow's farewell to the woman as she was next heading out of the building. So, I never did know for sure whether they kissed good-bye or just said bye as if it was his sister or merely a friend. I never did see her again but I was reminded of this woman a few months later when some guy mentioned the "ugly" (I quote) woman whom the pillow dated. I recall reminding him that beauty was in the eye of the beholder!

Across from where I attended university was a high school. There was a male attendee of the high school who looked awfully young to be in high school (he must have been a freshman) who was in a heeled plaster slwc for a while. I was doing a project in a lab that had a set of windows that faced the school yard and so I got to see him every now and then. What was unique about his set-up in the cast was that he always wore a full length sock over his toes. As a result of the presence of the heel, he'd wear the top of the sock onto the part of the cast between his toes and the heel. The middle 60% or so of the sock was left loose while the toe portion was tucked in under the upper edge of the sock that rested on the top of the casted foot.

As I exited out through a door that faced the high school on a particularly cool early spring day, I happened to notice the kid crutching along the opposite sidewalk heading in the same direction as myself. Perhaps it was due to wear and tear or simple laziness on his part but his sock was strangely perched on his cast. The middle portion that was curled back up and over it all was sticking way up in the air, it looked like he had a big donut on his foot. Cast-wise, it somewhat resembled the outriggers that can be incorporated into llc's (especially windowed ones) that I have seen pictured in some orthopedic text books.

Arriving at the busy intersection where the city bus stop was, the kid came to a halt, obviously waiting for the bus that was just pulling up. From the bus stop shelter that was located within a few feet of where the kid had stopped came a tall, very attractive, smartly dressed woman. The icing on the cake was when I noticed the plastering of her leg! She too was in an slwc, only, she was not using crutches.

This woman had a neatly arranged hair-do, and she was wearing a coat that was about the same length as that which the pillow's woman was wearing. She too had a skirt or a dress on that ended at about knee level thereby exposing the entire cast. The cast was very white, as was her toe covering; it was a completely white toe cap that had probably been made by modifying a regular sock.

Her getting into the line-up for the bus that had quickly formed soon after the arrival of the casted boy provided an ironic contrast. Especially in the way that everything about her was so business-like - including the tight little sock that was so well placed where it should be over her toes. And the boy with his loosely placed donut shaped sock... I could imagine how funny this debonair woman would have appeared had she had such a screwed up sock arrangement on her cast!

I lamented internally that I was not taking that bus to go home. Being on a bus with the casted kid would have been fun. With the addition of this classic looking casted woman, it would have been awesome. I have always had a special interest in neatly dressed women who happen to be casted. I like casted women in general but they take on added interest for me when they are neatly dressed, especially if dressed for business, or even more so, like in order to attend a wedding or similar function!

Over the course of the next few days, I tried to go see if she ever appeared around the same bus stop at about the same time of day but my attempts at seeing her again failed.