It's not about the house.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

For Want of a Nail...

I've taken to leaving my shoes around the AssVac lately...

Those are my red Keds. They make me run really fast. They also make me feel like I have bone spurs in my heels.

I started this habit when it was hot. I'd take two steps in the house at the end of what counts for me as a day, and suddenly my feet would feel all suffocated and confused. They couldn't stand to be constrained for one more second...

This is an old picture. You can tell because Destructo actually managed to break this pair of Crocs the other day. Kicked the strap clear off the left one with her right foot, she did, while she was walking, and even Johnny can't put the poor humpties together again.

You'd almost think the piggies would be cool enough in Crocs, but no. Because, see, I'm one of these fashion-forward people who wear socks with everything. My feet may not be small (size 9 1/2) and my step may not be dainty (I clomp like a stormtrooper, in other words) but my pedal extremities are delicate, I tell you. At the slightest insult, they blister like a pair of bastards in a holy-water bath.


I don't like these shoes. They're LL Bean, they were a gift, and I am an ungrateful sow. But they make my feet look flat and large, like a Don Martin character from the old Mad Magazine. So bleah. I've had them for five years and worn them twice. Both times with an off-shoulder shirt I have that's the exact same color. Matchy-matchy!

I even -- for the thirty seconds I allowed myself to be convinced they were not the ugliest, most uncomfortable footwear on the planet -- wore socks with Birkenstocks. I don't wear them with flip-flops, but only because I can't possibly wear flip-flops. Oh my god, the chafing between my toes! And I gave up wearing high heels, years ago, for even the fanciest of occasions, cultivating instead a fashion sense that allows me to craft appropriate ensembles around a snappy pair of boots.

Yes, it's possible I raised more than one glass in Teddy's honor after the aborted wake on Friday afternoon. Why do you ask?

The only shoes I don't wear socks with are the $4 faux-Keds I wear to mow the lawn. They started out as real shoes but rapidly decompensated.

Now I swear I keep finding them in places other than where I left them, as if they spend their nights creeping around.

I don't know which is spookier: those shoes, that picture, or the fact that I took it the last time I mowed the lawn and the date-stamp on the shot is August 8th.

"Decompensation" is a new word in my vocabulary. Wikipedia defines it as "the functional deterioration of a previously working structure or system." It's supposed to be a medical term, but I think it's okay if I use it here. Those shoes, after all, really do appear to be pining for the Norwegian fjords, don't you think? Although, for the grammar geeks among you, if I'd written that definition, I would have hyphenated "previously-working."

In order to realize this shot is old, you'd have to know what I know, which is that I left those shoes in my sister's living room two weeks ago, the day I learned my new four-dollar word.

Sometimes, I'm afraid I might be rapidly decompensating, too. But then I remember that the structure or system in question must not only be fart-in-a-windstorm useless, but it must also have been, at one point previously, working.

Phew!

9 comments:

P said...

OMG.
Just found your blog.
Read the most recent post.
Spat out my coffee.
Twice.
OMG.
Thank you.

EGE said...

Why, welcome, Penelope, and thank you! I'm awfully sorry for making you spit out your coffee twice. I meant to do it seven or twelve times..

Do you mind if I ask how you found me allll the way from -- wow, Oklahoma? I do believe you might be my very first Sooner.

Not my first Better, though. I've been gettin' better for a long time...

(Oh. I'm so sorry.)

Ladyscot said...

That's what the bottom of my closet used to look like until I got a shoe rack. Now the 4-5 pairs of shoes/sneakers/sandals I wear regularly are kicked under my desk!

Anonymous said...

Socks with sandals? *snort*

HPH said...

Only you could make size 9.5 feet and delicate work together in a believable way. Lawsy, that means my feet are just plain o' puny.

My friend Jackie always took her shoes off the second she walked in the door (especially heels). They didn't get moved for at least 10 days or until someone tripped over them. Excellent burglar deterrent.

Sashimi said...

o but high heels! There's something about them ..ain't it? Even though they do make you want to cry! Let us be fashionable or else die trying.

JMariah said...

Wonderful post. You had me in stitches.

EGE said...

Lady -- Yeah, the shoe part of my closet is the one part of my house I never sort through. I just turn it over to the gods of entropy and hope they'll leave the rest of my life alone. It makes for some sweaty tantrums in fancy dresses when I can't find the party shoes, I tell you what!

12 -- Hey! I bet you do it too! I bet you wear socks with sandals and a skirt!

HPH -- Long time no hear! And thanks for the hint. If the Giant Beast ever goes home again, I'll remember to use "burglar deterrent" as an excuse for my entropic tendencies.

Sashimi -- I hear ya, sister. But you haven't seen what magic I can work. There's something to be said for a fedora, 3/4 length velvet gloves, a spaghetti-strap satin dress, and tan Frye boots. Yowza!

JMariah -- Welcome! Thank you!

freestylemountainbiker said...

Hey your shoes you use to mow the lawn look better than mine mine are really grass stained and don't have shoelaces. You should take the laces out of your shoes it's nice being able to slip them on