I Bought A New Pair Of Shoes Yesterday...
As most of you know already, I like to walk just about everywhere and usually the total miles will always be above 10, this means that I am very tough on shoes...
Somehow, the manufactured shoes of today seem to wear themselves out BEFORE you take them out of the darn box! It's seem that about four weeks after I start wearing them, even with my my ritual of rotating them like tires-- I wind up with a pile of BTS ( Beat To Sh*t) shoes...
This makes me slightly annoyed, because there isn't a shoe repair shop in my area, and the one that's in town is owned by a vengeful ex-con, who loves to charge astronomical prices for anything needed beyond cleaning sneakers-- The preferred footwear of his Gangsta buddies...
My tactic of buying shoes at high to modest prices, even when they are on sale, might justify paying extortionary rates to get them fixed, but I just don't like the thought of being "taken" by a fellow "businessman ", as most legit bizfolk usually help each other out. This guy simply doesn't like me, and I wonder how he lost that eye, anyway?
Well back to the subject of my new shoes... This past weekend, I was looking at that pile of BTS shoes, and checking my budget, and weighing up spending part of my "beach money" on new shoes, and it looked like that was going to be it for my May get-a-way without something really cool happening.
As most of you guys know, sales have been slow, and your budgets are probably a bit stretched... The money for the extra things just might not be there at the moment, and your feelings might be starting to darken a bit.
Call me crazy, but I choose not to "Go There", as they say-- and I took my Sunday stroll ( 15 miles) in a pair of my BTS shoes, any old way...
Nice day, I grabbed a good lunch ( Smoked Shrimp and Chicken), an Entrepreneur magazine and had just found myself a good place in the park to eat and read-- When a college kid came up and asked me to sign his petition for some politico... I did it because the kid looked like he had been through some type of hellish morning, and I didn't want to make it worse.
The kid, thanked me and told me that he was verbally abused by just about everybody he had approached.
-- Please People! This 19 Year old isn't a thug, but your actions could make him one, and that we don't need, in a town where 500 murders occured last year...
I talked with this smart and intelligent kid for an hour, and I found out that he wanted to be a writer. Oh well, he seemed intelligent...
After our conversation-- I went to the Library and started working on my next product campaign, when a feeling of "You Just Did Something Really Great! " came over me. My walk home was great and brisk, in spite of those BTS shoes.
After Martini Hour, I hit the bed, and slept very soundly, in fact too soundly-- I woke up about 3 hours later than usual, just in time to hear the mail slot open and close... The mail was early, I was late, but the unexpected commission check was right on time! :)
This was totally a surprise, because I had forgotten about this particular company, and my ad campaign for them after a few YEARS, without a sale... I nearly thought that I was mis-reading the amount of the check, too... It was enough to buy a couple of pairs of shoes, a few shirts, a great lunch, and have "Beach Money" too!
PS: I am a born shoe-lover, and my Mom told me that my first clear spoken words at age one were "Shoes and socks"... and I have had a thing for good footwear all my life-- (Imelda Marcos-- I know the feeling..)
So you Ladies can be sure that "Shoe Love ", isn't just a "Girl" thing... BTW: My Ladies have always allowed me to choose their footwear, they say I have an "eye" for this... I also have a thing about beautiful legs and stuff like that, too! :)