September 21st,

2001

Saw Lots.

Three weeks ago, I stumbled at the top of the stairs that lead to the basement. But I’m an agile hulk of a man; I stopped halfway short of all eleven wooden stairs, somewhere around step 5 ½, and halted my early morning circus act with a panicked yet somewhat sleepily delayed left arm, performing an emergency stop using the wooden rail.

Railings are for real. Especially for old folks. You just never know when a sturdy well-positioned safety rail is going to be the only thing standing between you, a broken face, and fractured pride. But I’m not writing about safety rails.

The reason that I fell halfway down the stairs like an idiot is because the leather outsole on my shiny black dress shoes decided to perform an emergency separation from the rest of the shoe. You would think that I would have known about this situation beforehand, because usually those types of blowouts happen slowly over time. Usually.

So the whole front section of leather stripped right off the bottom of my $70 JC Penny loafers, catching me off balance and sending me spiraling into oblivion with a soon to be spilt glass of orange juice in my left hand. So this is great. I’m supposed to pick up DeAnja from her grandparents house at 8:30; 45 minutes from now. And my shoe just died. Capping it all off, we now have a tie that’s been baptized in orange juice. Swell.

No other dress shoes. What to do, oh what to do. Do something quick you moron.
Some type of glue; that’s what I’ll do. Glue.
Now there just aren’t many types of glue that will do, ..for a shoe.

Staring at the tool bench in the basement with a wet tie, looking for some type of doomsday adhesive.

One great thing about your dad and two siblings being electricians, is that you’re always going to have PVC glue somewhere.

Application successful. We are now go, for wearing this shoe, as soon as the oscillating fan dries the stuff dripping out the front. I’m not happy about this situation. For you see, some time ago I decided to quit purchasing cheap dress shoes. Now that your feet have stopped growing, go big. Put down some real cash and get yourself some nice shoes. This I did, and did again two years later, …for these particular shoes. They’ve been nice. I take care of them. Dad’s got one of those wooden shoe shining boxes, filled with all manner of shoe maintenance paraphernalia. It’s actually one of the few aspects of living that I can openly say that I’m on top of. I take care of it. I’ve got nice shiny black loafers.

I remember purchasing these shoes at the mall. None of the salespeople at JC Penney’s were of any help. At all. But they had what I wanted. What I’d planned on buying. Sitting there staring at the open shoebox, I began thinking about how long these shoes would last, and all of the unknown things that I would eventually do in these shoes. The people that I would meet; who I would dance with; who I would walk away from. Important things were going happen to me in these shoes. Surely even life-changing events. I would look down at my feet some time from this moment of purchase, and remember all of the good and fair and awful and pleasant and shocking and playful events, that these shiny shoes that I’d gotten with no help from any salesman, would see.

The purchase took place around 2 ½ years ago. The shoes saw lots.

But eventually most things have to be repaired or even replaced, and since the old shoe repair guy died, I’m forced to go look for new.

But the pipe glue did an astonishingly efficient job of keeping everything in place for the whole weekend. And they’re still not giving me any trouble. The next time I get a chance though, we’re going shoe shopping. This time for even better ones. Nicer ones. Shoes that will be with me from 22 through perhaps 25.

It’s such a shame though. These things are still so shiny and durable, if you don’t remember or fail to notice the adhesive polymers keeping them together. I think I’ll hang onto them for a couple more weeks, and wear them when I go to see her, to retire them with some well deserved good, pleasant, and playful times.

It’ll be like they’re retiring with a big ceremony; in full honors.