Goody New-Shoes

I really didn’t think I’d still be doing this at the age of fifty. I thought this was just a childish habit which for me had spilled over into teenagehood then adulthood. Because this is a really daft thing to do and totally illogical when you think about it with any kind of reasonable head. I don’t have that reasonable head, obviously. Well not when it comes to new shoes anyway. What the hell have I been doing, you may be wondering?
I’ve been taking my new shoes to bed. Not exactly into the bed with me, but just beside it, in their box, where I can open it and lovingly look at them as soon as I wake up in the morning and just before I drop off to sleep at night. The latest ones were bought last Friday but had been coveted for weeks. Stared at through the shop window. Touched gingerly one day. Tried on another. Finally bought almost a week ago. And I am looking at the box right now, as I sit in my bed, writing this.

I absolutely love these shoes. They are the nicest, cutest, brightest, boldest, sparkliest pair of trainers that I have ever owned. They have no exterior signs of membership of a multinational clan. No big letter sweeps across them. No funny tick mark. No white lines or dark springing cat. I’ve never liked to pay for something that is just a huge free advert in disguise. My shoes don’t need that glitz and garb, they are just genuinely, quietly gorgeous.

So what I am doing to them is outrageous. Like a father who keeps his beautiful daughter locked up at home, I am stopping them from living the life they should be living. A life on the streets; walking, running, stepping in puddles. They should be out there, dancing, prancing, strutting their funky stuff. But for fear of ruining them and a desire to keep them in their immaculate virgin state forever, I have shut them up in a dimly lit cardboard box in the cold stone tower that is my room. Of course I take them out and admire them often, stroking their soft suede coat, almost kissing their dainty nose, but fortunately stopping myself just in time before absolute weirdness and craziness sets in. But to all intents and purposes someone other than me could have and maybe should have bought these poor shoes and she would have set them free by now I’m sure.

So, it’s decided. Since tomorrow is Friday and on Fridays I allow myself to dress down a bit for work (not that I ever really dress up) these beautiful new trainers are coming out to play. Their lonely life as a pair of goody little new-shoes is over. It’s time to step outside the box and start getting dirty!