Shall I Tell You a Story?

I want to tell you a story, would you like that?

Imagine a day; a day like any other.

You wake up, get dressed, go to work, and walk miles in your well worn work shoes. You come home, do some of your daily house chores, play with the dog, change into street clothes and slip on your favorite pair of Converse that are just as worn as your work shoes with just as many miles but are so much more loved than they are. You run some errands, come home again, kick off your shoes, make some dinner, settle down for bed and begin to drift off for the night.

Only, something is amiss. What could it be? You toss and turn, no luck. You pause and listen. Do you hear it? That squeaking sound. Where is it coming from?

You sit up in bed, look around and listen some more. The sound is coming from under your bed. You draw up childhood memories of monsters under your bed, waiting for you to set one foot on the floor so they can bite it off.

You throw a pillow down first, just in case.

The squeaking stops.

You hold your breath and listen harder. You hear it again, squeak, squeak, squeak. It's a steady cadence of squeaks this time.

Completely befuddled, you throw off the blankets, climb out of bed and take two quick steps then freeze. That's when you spot it, at the end of your bed. Just there, do you see it? The source of the squeaking sound. Your eyes adjust to the darkness and to your horror you begin to take in such a terrible sight.

At the foot of your bed, a huddled black mass takes shape. Its fur is black as pitch, covering a well muscled body designed to pounce on its unsuspecting victims in the night. Its snout is long and pointed, filled with blindingly white teeth, so sharp they could chew through anything. But what terrifies you the most, is what you see gripped tightly between its dangerous claws.

You gasp!

The creature looks up at you without moving its head and continues to gnash its teeth. You're frozen in horror, because with every chomp of its jaws a high pitched squeak emerges.

"NO!" you yell, as you dive for that precious object held between the beast's hideous jaws. It dodges right. You dodge left and come up victorious, cradling your "precious" in your arms.

The beast looks up at you in confusion, and wags its tail.

In your arms you hold what was once the most beautiful, perfect, right-half of your favorite pair of aqua blue colored Converse shoes. Forever mangled and disfigured, you take a moment to mourn that shoe. You look down at that innocent size 9 and a single tear falls from the corner of your eye and travels down your cheek. The squeak you had heard was from the beast's teeth rubbing against the leather of the shoe. As if it were crying out in pain to be rescued from the heartless animal.

The tear dissolves and your anger filled eyes turn on the beast. It cowers, sensing that it has finally crossed a line and slinks toward its cage. You remind yourself that turning a dog into an area rug is illegal, no matter how nice of one it would make.

Don't fret my darlings, this story has a happy ending.

Out of your moment of defeat an idea emerges. You take to the internet like a woman possessed, scouring page after page of shoes until you find just the right ones. And there they are, one pair red and one pair black, but both as closely identical to the mangled one you hold in your hand as they can get without being the same shoe. You take the plunge, add them to your cart and check out.

Shipping takes two days, and you impatiently wait. You wait to see if your gamble is going to pay off. Was it possible to even come close to the perfection of those dearly departed pair of shoes? Could one pair, let alone two be as everlasting?

The shoes arrive.

You pull them out of the box, lace them up and take in that unmistakeable new shoe smell. You slip the first pair on, wiggle your toes, roll back on your heels and dare not hope. But that little voice in the back of your head whispers, "could it be?" You take them off and gently set them aside as you grab the second pair and put them on and follow the same process; toe wiggle, heel roll.

As you sit there and slowly take in the ramifications of what has just happened, Beethoven's Ode to Joy begins to play in the background. A miracle, a once in a lifetime shoe miracle, has just taken place! Both shoes fit perfectly, and both shoes are just as amazingly comfortable as the recently deceased pair! Oh, happy day!

The End


I told you it had a happy ending. And in case you were wondering, this and this are the shoes that I got.