I bought the gray flats on whim while grocery shopping with my mom. She said that they look like grandma shoes, and I realized how much of my college wardrobe fits that description... partially because they were once owned by a grandparent (my own or someone else's).
My justification was that they were $5. I had budgeted for myself $40 to buy a sensible pair of flats that would make it through the summer and three seasons of next year, walking my bum around France. I knew they needed to be sturdy and provide support. I found a pair for $25, which by rights meant that I had $15 left in the shoe budget. Into the cart the grandma flats went.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I work in an office for two hours, go sit in the lounge for 1.5 hours and return for another two hours of work. Not a lot of walking, especially when I ride my bike to work. This made Wednesday a perfect day to break in my flats. Genius.
When I got to the office on Wednesday, a stack of manila envelopes was waiting on my desk. My boss was almost embarrassed to ask. "Could you run these around campus?"
It was the first day I'd been able to ride my bike to work all semester. The sun was out. I was in a dress. My sunglasses were clean and still propped on my nose. Of course I could take an hour to walk around campus and not type scholarship applications.
I set off toward the opposite end of campus, and by the time I reached my first destination my heel was starting to moan. For the softness and floppiness of these shoes, the breaking-in process was being a bit ridiculous.
Walking between offices and buildings, I practiced strategies that kept the shoe from touching my heel without making my look like I was born on the side of a hill.* I didn't slow my pace. I settled into a flat walk, a bit of a stop, so that the whole foot was lifted and lowered at once, preventing the heel-to-toe roll that was skidding the shoe's lining across my heel.
On my walk back to the office, I decided to ask for a bandage, to cover the heel before it got worse. In middle school, I was notoriously bad for blisters. Mom would tell me it was a bad idea, but I would wear the new sandals to the fair anyway, and come home with the scabs and bloody toes to prove it.
I walked in, asked for the keys to the cabinet that holds the bandages and looked at my foot for the first time. The back of my foot was missing. Somewhere walking down the main street of campus, my shoe had eaten my heel, leaving a bloody, mangled carcass where my carefully moisturized and home-pedicured left foot had been.
The inside of the gray, "suede" shoe was lined with a deep crimson. I tried to chip off the dried blood, but left it when the chips started turning my fingernails red. I grabbed an alcohol wipe, bit down on the inside of my lower lip to keep myself from making any noises and set to work cleaning my foot.
I walked the rest of the day without any real problem. I still used the flat, dropping of the foot approach to keep the bandage in tact, and by the time I got home and hopped in the shower I'd forgotten about it.
The shower, however, was quick to remind me. I was glad no one was home to hear the, "Oh. Ow," or "Oh. Eew," each time a stream of water trickled down my leg and into the open wound (as the water had washed the bandage off and onto the shower floor).
What a perfect introduction to a small, early reminder...
Join Toms Shoes for One Day Without Shoes, an opportunity to spread the word and cover the feet of children around the world.
*my favorite Katherine Hepburn ad-lib, from Bringing Up Baby
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