Papa needs a new pair of shoes

I’ve never enjoyed shopping for shoes. I usually only buy new shoes once the old ones wear out, so I’ve never been one to see shoes in a store and have to buy them. I have like four pairs. I just don’t care what I wear on my feet as long as I’m comfortable and appropriate.

I have memories of shoe shopping as a child and they are not fond. We’d be in Kmart or somewhere with Mom trying to find something that fits with both of us getting annoyed and aggravated. I just hated it.

So there is some cosmic justice, maybe the echo of parental laughter floating through the decades, as I am now the one buying shoes for a child. I took our son to look for shoes at several stores before school started. We couldn’t find anything he liked and the shelves seemed depleted since it was Labor Day weekend and every other parent had picked those skeletons clean. His current sneakers were OK and still seemed to fit so I thought we could wait a little. I’ve been trying to be judicious with buying his clothes because he’s just going to start outgrowing them and I want to minimize the amount of immediately obsolete clothes we’re buying.

The other day when I picked our son up from school, his shoes were all torn up. I don’t know what happened but the canvas top was ripped and hanging off. The shoes were also starting to look generally shabby. He couldn’t go to school in them the next day.

I summoned my courage and we went to the mall that night. He picked out a few pairs of sneakers he liked but nothing fit. The employee helped us figure out his size, because I didn’t know. We went to another store and of course, he wanted Air Jordans or Kyrie Irvins. I told him they’re too expensive and I didn’t want to spend the money on something he’ll grow out of. So it was back to the original store to try on some of the same shoes again. We finally found shoes that fit. It wasn’t his fault it took so long since he kept finding shoes he liked and striking out in the size department.

I was stunned when I got home and we had only been gone a little over an hour. I was trying not to rush him because I didn’t want him to say the shoes he was trying on were fine just to shut me up. He seemed OK with what we found. It just seemed to take forever and I remembered my childhood and how annoying I must have been at those fluorescent-lit Kmarts in the ‘80s.