Me and My New Kicks

Earlier this year, early February I think it was, I walked into a Footlocker and purchased a brand new pair of Asics sneakers.  Blue, silver and white.  The white shined so brightly I could not stop staring at them.  I would put my sneakered feet up on the coffee table in the t.v. room and just look at it. 

They were the first pair of sneakers I had purchased for myself in four years.  (They were also the first pair of shoes of any kind that I had not picked up at a Goodwill store for $6 or $7.)  The pair the saleslady showed me were $40 but by the time I had tried on three of four different brands and styles, had been told that the ones I wanted were not in my exact size, had walked around in pairs that were a bit too big or a bit too small, I settled on this pair of Asics.  Those, she said were $60.  I balked.  Realizing that all the back and forth had confused me she cut me a break and sold them to me for the $40 that I thought they cost. 

I purchased those sneakers then because at the time my soon to be 3 year old triplets had shoes that fit them.  A pair of sneakers each for about $9 from Walmart and two or three pairs of different shoes and sandals each from Goodwill where the children’s shoes cost $2.60.  My Asics purchase was pretty good timing because not two days later while getting them dressed for preschool, SWOOSH said “Ow, Mommy, too small.” His feet had grown another half size seemingly overnight. This constant growing on the part of my children is the reason I have about a dozen articles of clothing in total, all of them, with the exception of these Asics, are certified Goodwill pre-owned.   

I had purchased a pair of pink, baby blue and black boots for SKINNY, two sizes too big for her but at $2.60, I was not going to pass it up.  I pulled them from the back of the closet and they fit SWOOSH perfectly and  he loved them.  My sister and brother-in-law frowned, the preschool teachers gave me funny looks.  I didn’t care. Sometimes he switched them off with his purple, silver, white Princess Frog sneakers which I did in fact purchase for him from the thrift store because he had begun fighting his sister for HER pink princess shoes.

 Last week, having cashed a too small check for editing work I did, I went and plunked down a nice chunk of it at Payless where I picked up three brand new, actually properly fitting pairs of sneakers for my wee three.  (They also happened to be gender "appropriate" though I clearly don't give a rat's ass about that.)  I see everyday how much tighter and shorter their pants get, the head holes of shirts that seem so suddenly too small for their giant noggins (one day I actually had to CUT my daughter out of her shirt), the socks where the heel part is somewhere in the middle of the underneath of their feet and I look at my Asics getting dingier and dingier and think, don’t let me down, sneakers, you gotta last me another four years at least.