Red Shoes

I saw someone looking me up this morning. Not just a bit, but very blatantly looking me up. They could hardly see anything else, other than me. Or at least that's what I thought (hoped).

Turns out it wasn't me at all. It was my shoes. Currently I have red trainers on. They are a very sensible choice of footwear. They are comfortable. I walk long distances at either end of my commute. As such I need footwear which
1) have the lasting power to cope with the distances and not wear out;
2) offer me comfort and support which hard leather shoes don't
3) be cheap enough to sacrifice in place of the decent shoes.

Fine. Trainers justified. But red ones? I had too many shoes in my shoe cupboard. The mere fact that I have a shoe cupboard should be concern enough for a man, even one with homosexual tendancies. But one of the shoe-reduction strategies was to use an existing pair each time one of the other pairs expired.

The red shoes were fashionable in the early part of the century. Or at least 'fun'. I have since found out that 'fun' is not a good reason to buy shoes. Not that these weren't good trainers. They were nice: my friend with whom I was shopping with wanted a pair. But then the nation slipped into the 'bland' end of the decade. It still feels odd to refer to the years 2000-5 as 'the turn of the century'. Everything was just plimsoles. Plain white plimsoles. Although I could jazz them up with some funky laces, even odd laces.

So they slipped out of favour, shuffled to the lower shelves, replaced by a pair of shiny white plimsoles with one pink and one green lace. Until, that is, fashion was suspended for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening out of cheapness and necessity.

I'm surprised by how long they are lasting actually. They are doing very well indeed. Too well, almost. Every day that they last is another day I attract the attention of ever-so-slightly concerned people.

Maybe I should see it as an opportunity, not an embarrassment. It provides me with an opening gambit, a glance to which I can smile. That is how it worked with the Toy Story lunchbox, at least. If I attract the glances of more people, then it increases the chances that one of them will be attractive and fancy me. It also increases the number of freaks and loons who believe I'm an appropriate target for a witty retort. It also increases the number of people who think that I am an ever-so-slightly nutty fruitloop just a slight accident away from incarceration in a suitably secure establishment.

Still, at least it stops people looking at my incredibly enormous penis. Not that that is entirely on show in the same way as the trainers. Or on show at all, in fact, in case the authorities are reading. And at least they are comfortable.