Oxblood Oxfords

The title of this silly little post is compliments of my good mother, who decided to honor my "red" shoes with a truly dazzling color.  As I polished them tonight, it struck me that they are nigh ten years young.

As much as I'd like to polish them with sentiment, they're really just nice Italian shoes that I bought off a discount rack.   Here's what I remember:

 - I bought them for about $80 US.  It's not much now, but that's somewhere near $300 in '98 dollars.  That was a good chunk of rent in those days.

 - I wore them to my sister Katie's wedding.  I remember this because my grandmother commented that my shoes reminded her of her father.

 - I wore them when I interviewed once with Merck, and twice with Pfizer.  They're not particularly lucky shoes.

 - I wore them to work at the University of Utah on the day I found out I had to pull a bunch (tons in a very literal sense) of coaxial cable out from under the floor.  Fine day to wear the nice shoes, thought I.

 - I managed to get a toe jammed in a Trax rail walking downtown with the old man & brothers.  There was a nasty scuff on the toe, long since buffed to a glistening sheen.

 - These shoes are churchin' animals.  Watch out!

I don't think I'd care much about these shoes if they didn't look so dang good.  I couldn't resist the urge to figure shoe-years out.  I reckon the average shoe lasts maybe two years.  Since 80 is ripe old age for people, we'll just extrapolate.  Forty shoe-years per earth year.  That puts these fine oxfords at 400 shoe-years old!  Since the result is so rewarding, I'll stick with this formula in favor of a more believable (and therefore boring) one.

As wonderful as these red shoes could be, I would be remiss should I fail to disclose flaws inevitable.  The heel treads are worn down to the stacked leather, and the inner leather lining at the heel is worn completely through.  The laces have worn into the tongue, and there are a few deep scratches that insist on remaining.  Now that I think about it, they have another flaw worth mentioning.  They are slow.  They're not uncomfortable, but the boot-stomping Sam could catch the red-shoe-wearing Sam in short order.  In fact, that is one reason why they wound up getting jammed in the train tracks.  I was trying to walk fast, and drove the shoes to protest.  That was about a hundred shoe-years ago, so I don't remember it clearly anyway.

I'm beat.  I wonder what I'll think about this when I read it awake.