There was once a time when I'd go to the mall, buy two or three pairs of shoes and go home. Then a baby came out of my wife and things just got all weird. Suddenly it was 1990 again and I was a kid who couldn't just go buy shoes whenever I felt like it. I had to wait until the old ones wore out. It's about that time and like my 1990 counterpart, I'm having trouble finding shoes in my budget.
I've never really known how to define my financial situation as a kid. Poverty is such a strong word. It usually implies going hungry or having a cardboard mattress. We weren't that bad off. We were like Diet Poverty, you know, everything you like about poverty but with Splenda. We went shoe shopping the same time we went school clothes shopping: The weekend right before the first day of school when my mother got paid.
We'd hit up Discount Mart, Morton's or 7th Heaven and I'd get some outfit that my mother or grandmother picked out blindfolded. One year my grandmother bought me a full length fire engine red coat with dark black fake fur going around the neck. It's because of that kind of love that I don't get embarrassed easily as an adult. Shoe shopping was different though. That's where I drew the line. I had to have some say in what shoes I got. My mother let me pick out whatever shoes I liked so long as they came from Payless. I tried my best to find shoes that looked enough like brand named shoes but the velcro snaps always gave me away. (They just don't make ProWings like they used to.)
Then someone told her that Payless shoes would mess up my feet and I got to go to Foot Locker. (Hallelujah!) For about two years I had shoes that were in style. Then came third grade and my hobbit heritage started to take over. I somehow went from a size six in second grade to a size eight in third or as my mother put it, "These shoes cost HOW MUCH!" Once you get out of a size six you have to buy adult shoes and they cost a hell of a lot more.
My mother gave me the choice of hobbling along in size sixes or following her down the green mile of Landover Mall and into Lady Foot Locker. I'll never forget going to school the next day with what I thought were the manliest looking shoes in the place only to have a classmate point out the pink and lime green stripes that I overlooked on the bottom of the shoe. Eventually my father found out and I was rescued. He took me to the mall and bought me some real shoes, but because I only saw him a few times a year, I had to make em last.
Every year around Labor Day, I prayed that he'd make another appearance and whenever he failed to show I ended up with another pair of Reebok Princesses that needed to be kept up. And that ladies and gentlemen is why I believe that being gay is not a choice but rather determined at birth. If it were a learned behavior then my family would've turned me a long long time ago...walking around with a long red fur coat and a pair of AKA tennis shoes.
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