Shoes

If you must know, I'm posting this because a) I don't generally post personal things, b) working normal hours means that I've put NFL Training Camp workouts somewhere after laundry and dishes, and c) I discovered an extra pair of boots last night.

I ordered a couple of pairs of shoes from Kohl's a couple of weeks ago – their shipping is painfully slow, almost like the experience you get when you shop at Sears[1] – and they arrived today. (Incidentally, I also got some gloves, neat little things with the things on the hands where you can connect some kind of warming device. That might be helpful ...) They're the black shoes that I wore when riding last year; basically, my workout shoes. The current ones have some miles on them, so I thought it would be a good idea to get new ones, take advantage of the current sale, and push the existing shoes down the ladder of uses.

I doubt most people do this, so I'll explain: for "normal" shoes, I have three categories: workout, normal use, and lawn use. When I get new workout shoes, the old workout shoes become normal-use shoes, and so on. Sometimes I get rid of the lawn-use shoes if they're in bad shape, and other times I save them for that one time in a year when you need shoes you really don't care about.

So. The two new pairs move to the workout slot (to be rotated), the old pair becomes a casual pair, and the old normal-use pair joins the lawn pile. I thought about all this, checked out my shoe rack[2] to see where they'd go, and then thought it might be time to do inventory again ... and while I was thinking that, I was counting. I counted the shoes on the top rack, then the bottom, then the ones underneath, and then ... boots?? Boots go in the closet (snow boots, not some other kind of boots). And yes, the winter boots were in the mud/laundry room, but these were definitely boots.

I don't remember buying them. They make sense, though. They're not quite winter boots, lighter, I think, so I could wear them with jeans. (Slacks, no. When it snows and I have to wear slacks, I just assume I will be stepping on the back of my pant leg and occasionally getting snow in my shoes.) They're in the walk-in closet[3] because they go with pants. Otherwise, they'd go in the hall closet.

Anyway, I thought you would be amused to know how many pairs of shoes I have. I prefer to have different shoes for different purposes, and while I do throw out worn (meaning holes, faded colors for good shoes, that kind of thing) shoes, I don't throw out shoes that aren't worn often.

Casual dress shoes (for Friday casual through business casual): seven pairs. Two brown slip-on pairs, two black[4] slip-on pairs, three brown lace-up pairs. (The lace-up ones are older and of slightly different colors. Naturally, there's no good way to get a belt the same color as the one you already have unless you happen to remember to wear it when you go to the store to get one.)

Dress shoes: three pairs. Not sure why I have the third pair. I think maybe the other two looked just a little scuffed.

Casual shoes: two pairs, the black New Balance shoes and a low-cut boot-type pair.

Lawn shoes: two pairs, the old pair (still in decent condition, not quite ready for the trash) and the until-recently-casual pair.

Sports shoes: four pairs, one for football (flag football, from several years ago), one for golf, one for bowling, and one pair of high-tops for basketball, a pair that could probably be retired given that I haven't played in many years.

Flip-flops: one pair, purchased with my carefully-acquired Pepsi Points a long time ago. (Wikipedia says it started in 1996, but I think it goes back farther than that.)

Slippers: one pair, carefully stowed away where the cat cannot get to them. (She forced me to get rid of my last pair. Some things do not go back on your feet.)

Boots: two pairs, as mentioned above, one for snow and one for not-quite-snow.

That's either 20 or 21 pairs, depending on whether you count flip-flops, which I wouldn't wear other than on a beach or to sand volleyball. Sounds a little extreme, doesn't it? But I don't like to throw things away if there is any use left in them, and a good number of the shoes come from changing dress codes or from infrequent situations. (Suits? sigh.)

My feet generate quite a bit of heat, which means it doesn't generally go well if I wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row ... thus multiple pairs for several different activities. The bowling shoes were necessary[5], as were the other sports shoes, I suppose. It does work better when you have the right shoes for a task.

So it all makes sense to me. Some might see me as either a hoarder or insane, but I prefer to think of it as being prepared for anything.

Well ... I don't have shoes for curling yet ...

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[1] I don't know, I guess some people still do. Just pretend I asked them and they confirmed it for me. (return)

[2] What, most guys don't have shoe racks? Oh, right. And most probably leave their clothes on the floor, rather than sorted by type in separate hampers so as to assist in putting together compatible loads of laundry. Of course, if you've had cats long enough, you don't leave such things on the floor. Anyway, shoe rack = neatness. You know, fastidiousness. Raven. (return)

[3] Of course I have a walk-in closet. It's kind of hard to build a modern three-bedroom house without one. What am I supposed to do, keep my clothes in the spare bedroom because I don't have two X chromosomes? That's a bit much, don't you think? (return)

[4] duh. Black belts, black shoes. Brown belts, brown shoes. Srsly. Guys have maybe three rules to follow – the others being "don't wear stripes and checks/plaid" and "don't wear closely-matched colors"[6] – so of course I know this one. (return)

[5] because you've seen a bowling alley, and you've seen other people's feet. (return)

[6] Well, if you're a woman, that's how you'll think of it. For us, it reads "Don't wear the same color pants and shirt unless you are actually wearing a uniform." "Color" in this context means "the word I would use to describe the color." Doesn't matter if it's actually the same: if it's close enough that I might use the same word for each, then one has to wait for another day. (return)