I saw this topic and had to write. Dogmama, I remember laugh in and I have followed that act. Fortunately, just bruised ego!

I don't know if this is helpful, before I went to clipless I used "powergrips." Performance bike sells them as do most lbs. They are essentially a kevlar strip on a metal pedal and it forced me to get used to the "action" of getting into clipless without committing to clipless. Because they are not toe clips, if you could not make it into the pedal in time, you just stepped on the kevlar strip.
It was the best $30.00 I spent, I saved the pedals for my commuter bike.