Ant’s Footwear Futility

My left brain doesn’t know what shoe goes on my right foot.

When I was a kid, I could not figure out how to tie my shoes. Until I was 9 my feet were velcroed, and my mind could not make sense of that whole cross-tuck-loop-wrap-loop-pull concept. Only in 5th grade did it suddenly come together, in this wild “Eureka” moment that ever since has had me assured that my shoe troubles were long solved. Last night, 19 years after this revelation, I learned that I still don’t quite know how to deal with shoes.

A few weeks ago I bought some new boots. The old ones were cheapies, and had put in good service, but they were toast. The new boots have been amazing, very comfy and durable. I also bought these spiffy specialized inserts, that you take out at night so they don’t get smelly, and I’d been having a lot of fun breaking them in. Until yesterday.

Sean and I had an early meeting yesterday morning, so I tucked my inserts into the boots, put em on, tied ‘em nice and tight (practice has made perfect there, at least), and then he and I walked to a coffee shop a few blocks from the office. I didn’t mention it, but in my boots - which up till now I’d been quite happy with - my feet hurt like hell. Last night I decided to go for an evening walk, and again, it was painful. I wasn’t happy. My feet hurt. I sat down to rest my aching feet, groaning about how much f&*@#$ money I’d spent on these boots, and now they were hurting my feet worse than the old ones did.

Wincing up the stairs to my apartment, back home I collapsed onto my futon, took off my boots and took out their inserts. Something caught my eye. I held up both inserts, side-by-side, wondering what it was - and then I realized that I had the left insert in the right - er, wrong - boot.

And I thought something was wrong with the shoes.

This morning the ache in my feet has started to subside, but I’m still shaking my head at this painful little error (and wondering if it could get my BootsnAll membership suspended, due to incompetence!). Perhaps I should go back to velcro, and maybe in another 10 years or so I’ll finally get the hang of footwear.