I am not a shoe person. I blame this on two things.
- I’ve only ever found one pair of comfortable shoes–my FinnThink sandals–I’m currently on my third pair.
- My white-trash heritage surely plays a role in my anti-shoe fetish. I grew up on dirt roads out the woods, and I didn’t always keep my shoes on outside. The second I stepped inside, the shoes came off–a habit I continue today.
Because I don’t particularly like them, I hate shopping for them (especially since I know that something that feels okay in the store often will kill my feet the first time I try to wear them to classes).
As I hate shopping for them, I don’t give myself the chance to find comfortable shoes that I won’t hate, and thus the cycle continues.
But there’s also the problem of my shoes simply falling apart.
A few years ago, in London, the heel came off the only pair of shoes I’d packed with me. The cobbler I took them to–while wearing flip flops a size too small that Carmen had lent me–he told me that my cheap Target boots weren’t worth fixing. “But they’re my only pair here!” He glued the heel, and wouldn’t even charge me, preferring to shake his head at me instead.
Last summer, in Iceland, another pair of boots lost a heel while on a tour–we were on an amazing beach, with basalt columns that looked like organ pipes. The sound of the waves coming to the shore was marred by the loud flap my loose heel made with every step. Those boots stayed in Iceland.
A couple of weeks ago, I happened to glance at a pair of sandals–Danskos–that I hadn’t worn in a long time. Later, after entering Target, I heard a noise like I’d dropped something. Part of the shoe had come off. As I grabbed bread and my prescriptions, I left a trail of shoe. Here’s what the bottoms looked like when I got home:
