MARCH 12, 2006

I have a hole in the bottom of my shoe. It is a pair of all leather slip-ons (loafers?) with neat little tassels on the top. (I have not owned lace-up shoes since eighth grade: I'm to lazy to bend down to tie them!) These are a very expensive brand of shoes, Bostonians, that cost $100 (actually, I paid $30 for them on a close-out sale; I have never paid full retail for anything in my life, considering such a thing tantamount to mortal sin.) What galls me is that the tops are not even broken in yet!

When I was a kid, shoes had a definite life cycle. Around Christmas or Easter, Mommy and Daddy would buy the kids "new" shoes. These were for dress up only, mainly Sunday Church. When the next major holiday came around, these would be replaced, and the former "new" shoes became the "good" shoes, worn basically for school. After they had become worn and scuffed - and when the latest purchase had been received - this pair was now degraded to "play" shoes. And the cycle would continue: new to good to play. The play shoes would last until you totally outgrew them, or they literally fell apart on your feet. This was because it was not until the final stage that the things were at last broken in, at last comfortable. How I would hate to throw them away, because it was not until they were in terminally fatal condition that they felt good, that I did not mind wearing them.

The tops of these tasseled Bostonians are still in the "new" stage as far as I am concerned - I still need a shoe horn to get them on, the are still stiff and shiny, they are still uncomfortable - and there is a hole in them! An outrage!

I could (and probably will) have then resoled (which will no doubt cost about as much as a new pair on sale) but it seems out of joint, unnatural, to repair something that has been worn out before being properly worn in, a contradiction that violates my sensitivities.

On the other hand, Lent has barely begun, still in the shiny "new" and uncomfortable stage, and my resolutions of penance are yet stiff, but the way I live my life is even now showing signs of holes. In the past week, I have caught myself losing my patience and temper and have reacted to some things with apathy and laziness. My penchant for procrastination has not improved at all. (This article was to be given to the secretary early on Tuesday morning, in daylight. It is now dark of night as I sit in the office at the computer, and the secretary has already abandoned me long ago, having completed her work in a timely manner and gone home!)

I guess I cannot in justice be so upset with my shoes, since I seem to need recycling worse than they do!