leather shoes

About 4th grade I discovered the shower, a comb and began to see girls in a new light. that was the year the Smiths across the street found "locker room" clothes, which were cheap enough for mom to buy us a few shirts. Payless shoes were still the standard shoes, made with a plastic upper and a hard rubber sole they didn't scream style, in fact because of my new awakening for style I began to be slightly embarrassed about my shoes.

My Payless shoes were worn out and if we were shoe shopping it was because my current shoes had large holes in them. I remember being at the mall and we walked into a shoe store that wasn't Payless. My eyes were opened, They had shoes that were leather and didn't look like a single piece of molded plastic but looked like they would bend and fold with your foot when you walked. Mom had given us a $10 limit for the shoes. I spotted a pair that were the coolest I had ever seen and they looked like they were leather. They were white with red and blue stripes running parallel to the sole and the rubber gripped the ground when I tried to run in them.

$20 was too much to pay for shoes but I had seen the light so I begged which was usually fruitless but I still persisted. Mom being a better negotiator offered this "well your birthday is next month, you could choose to have these for your birthday... if you pay half".

I remember thinking this was a crappy deal but I had begged and didn't feel like I could back down now, so I gave in, "OK" I said. I had money from my paper route and present my $10 cash and we bought the shoes. Cody also liked the shoes and asked if mom would buy him the shoes if he paid half too, mom said "well you do need new shoes" , this is when I realized I had gotten a raw deal and probably where I first realized being a busness man was not for me. Cody got the same deal that I had, but his birthday was one month prior and he had already gotten his presents.