After the platform party was on stage, my role was to guard one of the rear exit doors, keeping students from leaving before the ceremony was over.

The ceremonies are fairly short now, as only our college was graduating. But more than five years ago, numerous colleges would hold their graduations together, and the ceremony would run about three hours. Students often would walk across the stage and then want to leave with their family and friends to go out to eat.

Now the students who want to leave the floor just need to go to the restroom and want to return for the rest of the ceremony. Just in case, we require the student to leave something to help assure that the student will return. Here are the shoes that one student left.

“Don’t take them,” she said to me as she left them with me.

“Don’t worry I won’t,” I said trying to imagine why anyone would want to wear those shoes.

When she returned, she asked to hold my arm so she could get back into the shoes.