These shoes

So I was thinking yesterday that these shoes I bought were probably the worst purchase I've ever made. I can't put my orthotics in them, and I figured I had just gone and sunk a couple hundred bucks into one more thing I will never use. Kinda like ... my guitar.

But then, I had two reasons to go out tonight, one of which I ended up flaking on. (Yes, for the record, sometimes even when really cute sorta-single, gainfully employed lesbians who can cook call and invite me to a poker part, I end up flaking. One reason is that it was poker. But the other reason -- the real reason -- was that Bubba and I had a sushi date that ended up lasting much longer than anticipated, and we were having a rather intense discussion about her breakup pattern when I realized I was supposed to be arriving at that poker party. So ... bad me! ... I flaked!)

Anyway, I had this reluctance yesterday to wear the shoes outside of my home, thinking I might return them. On accounts I thought I was unlikely to wear them. On accounts I can't fit the insert in them. And on accounts that the inserts make a huge difference in my experience of walking without pain.

However.

I put them on and walked out the door tonight, and within just two or three crunches of something underfoot -- probably nut shells -- I knew there was no returning them. It doesn't matter.

Because there is no fucking way in hell I'm returning these shoes.

And as Bubba noted when she tried one of them on, it seems a pity one should ever have to take them off.

This is not the exact shoe I purchased, but if you take off the button near the split at the top and imagine a light brown leather, you've got the idea:

Bubba called them "sexy." I don't think I can agree with that appraisal. To me, they look like everyone else's shoes, kind of clog-like. I made this observation to Bubba, and she said, "*What* are you talking about? They do not look like other shoes. They're *beautiful.*"

OK, I said, put your other shoe next to it and tell me what the difference is.

"These are sleek. They don't look like my boots at all. Very cute shoes. Very stylish. How much did these cost?"

I told her.

And so she added, "Yeah, well, the fact remains that even if these kinda sorta look like other people's shoes -- which they don't -- they sure as hell don't *feel* like other shoes. If I owned them, I don't think you'd ever see me wearing anything else."

I once said as much about my Keene's. But as I observed from walking around in these shoes this evening ... well, it's rapture. My feet feel like they have been transported to the kind of place jihadists dream of: somewhere that they're being pampered by a whole bunch of virgins who don't know any better than to lavish attention on those crude horney little bastards.

In other words, I'm committed.