somebody intervene. again. May 3, 2008
Posted by Abby T in : misc. adventures, rants & raves , 3 commentsMy name is Abby, and I have a shoe problem. But probably not in the way that you might assume. My shoe problem does not consist of my purchasing too many pairs of shoes; in fact, it is quite the opposite. I buy one pair of shoes and wear them to shreds and refuse to replace them.
When I went to West Marine and bought my Top-Siders some time in… 2005, it must have been, they looked like this:
Boring, brown, leather. Pretty standard, really.
I bought them mainly because my parents had at the time a Thing against being barefoot on boats, so I figured I’d let them buy me these shoes and we’d match when we were sailing and I’d leave them on the boat and never think of them again.
So I did that for a few months, until the end of one particular sailing expedition. I accidentally wore them back to school, or packed them, or something, and so they ended up in my closet for whatever reason. And there they sat until I had an important realization. I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “if you wear those, you don’t have to bother to put on socks, but you’ll still be in dress code.”
And thus began a long and blissful relationship.
A few days after I started wearing them, I took out the laces. They were dumb and leather and didn’t stay tied, and the shoes stayed on just fine without them. I wore them at least three times a week all through the rest of high school. When I got to college, laundry started costing money, and I started looking for ways to conserve clean socks, and I started wearing my trusty topsiders all day, every day. They now look like this:
Still boring, still brown, still leather; no longer at all standard.
New features to note:
- Gaping hole in the right shoe. The thread frayed and pulled through the leather. I had to knot it to keep it from pulling any further through.
- New “laces”. Made of tieline from the light shop. I broke these in so far that they were no longer staying tight enough without laces.
- Paint splotches. I worked in the paint shop last fall and gave up on trying to remember to put on my official Paint Shoes in the morning, and decided just to let these guys get a little painty.
- General splotchy discoloration. They’re that old.
- Hole in sole of left shoe (not pictured). Right in the heel. Awesome.
- General trend of leather and sole alike to lean towards the outstep (not pictured). Apparently, I walk on the outsides of my heels! Who knew?
Fine. You get the point: my shoes are old. But here’s the thing: today, I went to the shoe store and tried to buy another pair. I had the exact same shoes, in the same size, in my hands, in line for the register, and I realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t! The little men in my head kept telling me I had at least another year left in my current shoes. Their opponents pointed out that I can no longer wear these out to nice places, and that they now have to be paint/build/work shoes.
But I don’t care. I’m not replacing them until they fall apart in the middle of Sheridan Road.
-@